


Further Tales Of Elbereth’s Bounty

by Gloromeien



Series: In Earendil's Light Trilogy [4]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-31 01:50:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 99,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12121935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gloromeien/pseuds/Gloromeien
Summary: This is a companion piece to Of Elbereth’s Bounty, which takes place between the action of the final chapter (16) and the epilogue, set centuries in the future. Some of the characters from OEB deserved to have their own stories wrapped up outside of the actual narrative of that tale. This particular tale is a prologue of sorts to the three tales that follow, where the main characters of those stories are set up.Disclaimers: Characters belong to that wily old wizard himself, Tolkien the Wise, the granddad of all 20th century fantasy lit. I serve at the pleasure of his estate and aim not for profit.Author’s Note: While I think parts of this story can be understood on their own, I think it better to read the whole cycle, or at least Of Elbereth’s Bounty, to completely understand the world I’ve created and the character histories. The series is as follows: Part One is ‘In Earendil’s Light’, Part Two is ‘Under the Elen’, and the vastly larger Part Three is ‘Of Elbereth’s Bounty’. These Further Tales come into play after the last chapter of OEB, but before its epilogue.





	1. Prologue: A Bushel of Brothers

Prologue: A Bushel of Brothers

Yavië, Yen 196, Fourth Age

As dusk swept over the hush vale around them, a panoply of stars pricked through the sky’s indigo canvass, icy, lustrous, and remote. A smoky wind rustled the shadowy gardens around them, the black river rushing far beneath the terrace’s glass floor; to a passing observer on the mulch banks below, the circle of elves around the spitting, makeshift hearth were but glimmers in the vast firmament above. 

These brave ones bunkered into their spare pewter armchairs and burrowed in their woolen cloaks to stave off the crisp autumn air, their bitten cheeks peaked rosy from the cold, heated ruddy from their mugs of hot cider. The impromptu gathering was ostensibly to celebrate a passing of the torch, though Tathren needed no excuse to indulge in an evening’s conversation with his three blossoming brothers. The triplets were but a three-month away from their first majority; as such, they would soon require proper housing, away from the familiar nest of their doting fathers. He and Echo had built themselves a more formidable home some years ago, and as they had quite recently completed construction on Cuthalion’s talan, their bachelor apartments were newly empty. The two trees that berthed them had flourished through the years, so it was little trouble for one of Echo’s talents to add a third apartment over the first on the more bountiful of the mallorns. A spiral staircase of spun glass gave this talan access to the still revolutionary translucent terrace; the only quarrel that had remained would be which brother would occupy which space. 

Despite Tathren’s ever-constant encouragement, benevolence, and filial devotion, the three had nevertheless been astounded at their good fortune, when their gift had been revealed to them that very evening, as they toured the renovated apartments. While leonine Rohrith had been the most anxious for independence, he had also immediately assured the more introspective Ciryon that he would protectively reside below him. Brithor, the most wildly social of the three, would no doubt be the loudest, thus his brothers would appreciate even a subtle distance in his residence across the way, while Ciryon would relish the seclusion of the higher boughs. Each could not cease their commendation of Echoriath’s efforts, such that his humble bereth was plum-cheeked by the time they settled around the hearth. Cuthalion, never one to miss such intimate moments among his brethren, had brought a keg of simmering cider, so their conversation might span long after midnight. 

As the triplets were on the cusp of maturity, this would be one of their final chances to frequent them in frazzled, brimming innocence. 

Tathren himself had not yet entirely digested the fact of their coming majority. He could only imagine how his esteemed Adar felt, to see their three sprightly sons grown into creatures of such sparkling grace, they could outshine the Evenstar herself. Their sultry locks of hair, when loose, fell in thick waves, of a velvety blackness that lured many a stolen, indecent caress, when in unfamiliar company. Their wolfine beauty had grown more feral with the onset of adulthood; their skin the consistency of churned cream, their obsidian eyes rapt, piercing, their lips a sumptuous snarl of scarlet, the sinuous virility of their bodies slowly emergent. 

During their recent, two year sojourn in Gondolen, their elders had had to monitor them with hawkish vigilance at any social gathering, feast, or festival; not from their own exuberant ways (for the triplets were often dutiful to a fault, and were nevertheless allowed to freely explore the myriad experiences offered there, the very intent of the journey’s undertaking), but from the covetous actions of other, older predators, who sought to taste what had in no way been granted to them. Tathren had, somewhat gleefully, taken to tossing these rogues into the deeper swells of the river, though some public humiliation was also employed to temper their lecherous ways. Cuthalion had himself suffered a fractured arm in one brawl; when an elf was so impudent as to claim he had already taken on two of the three and was angling for a hat-trick, though the elf in question had far graver injuries, nearly being sent to Mandos by their silver cousin’s rage. Elrohir had even expressed his gratitude that Tathren had not been present, for he did not doubt the elf’s thieving tongue would have found itself wrenched out, his dumb spirit in the Halls of Awaiting before he could blink a gouged eye. 

Few such incidents were repeated within the secure borders of Telperion, where the irrepressible triplets had made themselves beloved and respected by all. Indeed, Tathren had come, of late, to wonder which lucky elves would enjoy majority rites with these beauteous three, as he, despite being their closest confidant, had heard hide nor hare of any romantic dealings beyond the chastest flirtations. Echoriath had also expressed some concern to his mate, specifically in regards to his pet, Ciryon; an elfling of similar disposition to his once-timid husband’s younger incarnation. Meanwhile, Talion had been appraised of some rather wanton behavior from the amiable Brithor, while in Gondolen – not unconscionable considering Tathren’s own past, but certainly worth a carefully-worded warning from elder, more experienced elves. Rounding out the brow-furrows, whisperings around the training grounds had caught Tathren’s own attention in regards to Rohrith, a normally affable and invigorating elfling who was lately given to sullen moods and bouts of mild depression. His brother was such a tremendous spirit – blessed with effortless leadership skills and a budding orator – that the only trouble Tathren could conclude that might so plague one of such ardor, was, of all things, a broken heart. Thus, the three older elves had engaged these hardy younglings in fond, often jesting, ultimately secure conversation, in hope of imparting some timely advice to them. 

Cuthalion’s recent romantic entanglements unwittingly provided them with safe passage to such closely-guarded intimacies, though the silver elf was suffering for it. 

“Does it not chasten you some, dear cousin,” Brithor taunted daringly. “That your very potency as a male rests on the steady and sure maturation of your relationship? That your journey, as they say…”

“-or more specifically, your elfhood-” Rohrith mirthfully added. 

“-rests on the edge of a well-flinted knife,” Brithor finished, with despotic flourish. He rested his tongue-tip on the sharp of his left incisor, savoring the fire that burned Cuthalion’s cheeks. “Wielded by no less than a former Marchwarden of the Galadhrim?” 

“You underestimate our esteemed Loremaster, gwanur,” Ciryon commented, his innocuous tone and his innocent air belying the keen intelligence he was known for, in family circles. “With the annals of our people at his disposal, his methods would perhaps not be so brute… but they would be prolonged and tortuously painful.” 

“Such chances you take, cousin, and for what?” Brithor laughed wryly, though he knew very well how sought after Cuthalion’s beloved indeed was. 

“For one inestimably dear,” Talion softly replied, his reverence for her plain. “I hope, pen neth, that your heart will one day be so thoroughly ensnared as mine. Though I should perhaps save such experience-gleaned counsel for later years; for from what I have discerned about the vale, I should rather bequeath you my former mantle of maid-lover par excellence than lecture you on the charms of celibacy.” 

Brithor smirked amicably, but did not deny the charge. 

“One between us three must match our elder brother’s impressive example,” he murmured, though was smart enough to feign contrition. 

“What may impress those of tender age,” Tathren himself noted. “Can seem regrettably naïve in later years, even to the elf himself. In one’s race for carnal knowledge, one might fly by a worthy, patient heart.” He lifted his husband’s hand to ready lips, caressed the soft of his palm. 

“Though without that frivolous experience,” Echoriath reminded him. “The elf in question may never have slowed his pace long enough to mark the one who awaited him.” He shifted his warm, amber eyes to an avidly attentive Brithor. “Your confidence is admirable, nin bellas. It takes a not insignificant amount of self-possession to claim in elflinghood what is meant for majority time. I hope you were treated well?” 

“Exquisitely well,” Brithor acknowledged, realizing that his sibling and cousin only sought such assurance, his ease in such private activities. “Forgive me, I have been too boastful. I have known no maid since our return…” The flint of mischief alighted his onyx orbs anew. “Though I have entertained some rather… enticing offers, for my majority rites. I am blessed with quite a selection, especially since my brothers follow the family tract, so to speak, in this regard.”

“Are you all so overwhelmed by choice?” Tathren inquired delicately. With a fortifying breath that did not go unnoticed, he phrased his following question with a studiously muted tone. “Or have you resolved yourselves to the pursuit of a particular someone?” 

Neither Echoriath nor Cuthalion dared add their expectant stares to Tathren’s own gentle gaze, as the other two fell deathly silent. Rohrith, to their astonishment, began a meticulous examination of his cider mug, while Ciryon was quite obviously at war within himself. 

Brithor intuited this struggle within his intelligent, awkward brother, and so remarked: “Ah, gwenin, why so glum? Are we not fortunate to have such betters to consult, such a collection of widespread experience before us? Our elder brother, who has known maid and male, promiscuity and heartbreak, the stark nights of celibacy and a half-century’s loving bond? Our familiar cousins, estimable for their varying extremes, one pledged nearly from birth to a beloved and the other embarked on a lifelong search for companionship, only recently accomplished? Tell me we are not so stubborn as to deny ourselves the chance to engage them with our woes!” Both his twins absorbed this for some stretch of time, seeming affected by his arguments but yet unable to formulate the proper questions for this sudden consultation. 

“You are wise indeed, Brithor,” Cuthalion praised him, to underline their intent of sympathy and of succor to the young elves. “To include my gentle brother in your estimation. Many green elves might think his counsel ridiculous, given that he has only loved one in his time. But that would be an injury, methinks. He has known the trials of love as few among we, more lust-glutted things, his unique experience could prove a lesson in devotion to us all.” 

When Echoriath blushed nearly crimson at this, Tathren could not keep his tongue: “You may be shocked, cousin, to discover what other, more practical lessons a lover such as your brother might have the rather exceptional proficiency to impart.” 

“Or perhaps you merely wish for some further instruction this night, bereth-nin,” Echoriath recovered saucily, sinking further into Tathren’s tight embrace. “Though I heartily agree that this student has long matched his teacher in wiles… if not, at times, surpassed.” 

“Surpassed!!” Tathren exclaimed, digging his fingers down to Echoriath’s waist and launching a masterful tickling assault. The dakling elf squealed, squirmed, and soon none in their company could keep their giggles back. 

With the exception of Ciryon, who timidly essayed: “I… I did not know that you… that Tathren was… your bed-teacher.” The others hastened to settle themselves, not loosing their smiles, but well aware of the effort it took Ciryon to speak of such personal matters. 

“He was indeed,” Echoriath warmly elaborated. “Your brother is a gallant beyond compare. The only fear I felt was of my own conjuring, not once did he give me reason to doubt him. He guided me, pleased me… and kept my heart, besides.” 

“You loved him even then?” Ciryon asked, his face still somberly beset. 

“I have always loved him,” Echoriath underlined. “From my elfling years. At first, as a guardian and companion… then as my desire began to rear itself in my fortieth year, twas he who was its centrifugal focus. I never gave even passing thought to another, not even when my father pressed the issue some upon my second majority. But even then, I knew my heart. I just did not believe my chosen one thought softly on me, in return.” 

“Though he was subsequently proved horribly wrong on this account,” Tathren chuckled, stealing a proper kiss. Yet he had tender eyes for his brother, as well, and these soon rested on shivering Ciryon, as Brithor stroked a consoling touch over his back. “Is there one, then, who moves you, pen-gwanur?” 

Ciryon only flushed further at the insinuation, though Rohrith piped up to encourage him. 

“There is one who gave him kisses,” Rohrith explained. “Though he will not indicate if this is the elf who holds his heart. Nor this bold one’s identity.”

“He was sweet with me,” Ciryon assured them, not wanting them to assume the worst. “He is… altogether remarkable.” 

“Have you courted some?” Echoriath questioned. 

“For a time,” Ciryon admitted. “He is a journeyman, at times in the vale, but most times away. We frequented each other in Gondolen, not knowing… verily, twas I who did not know that he... he esteemed me as I… then on the ship pointed home, he revealed himself as my admirer, but he was off to adventure immediately after.” His voice lowered to a pained whisper, he bleat his last. “He will be away for our majority. Indeed, I know not when he might return, or if… if…” Ciryon winced his brimming eyes shut, rallied his emotions. “Was it very tough for you to forgo your first majority, cousin?” 

“You would wait for him, then?” Echoriath asked rhetorically. “Nay, it was little trouble. There was but one who had my heart. I could not conceive of giving it to another, even if I was unsure this one’s would ever be my own.”

“Yet your own liaison shows promise,” Cuthalion encouraged him. “It would be little trouble, if you so chose, to wait but a little while to see if it bears fruit, though the intensity of your own desires are the best gauge of this alternative’s viability. He must return before too long, and then… you must be brave, and have your answer from him.” 

“Tathren and I would be most glad to entertain you on your majority night,” Echoriath insisted. “I imagine that between us we might plot some merriment to suitably distract you. And if the elf indeed turns up, then we can easily be forgotten.” 

“Verily, I would be glad of it,” Ciryon attempted a smile, heartened both by their sage counsel and their peerless care. 

“Might I join you in this revelry?” Rohrith inquired softly, the strain of his own indecision writ large across his lush features. 

“Is there none you have found who pleases you?” Tathen asked in return, surprised his boisterous brother had not settled on a choice. Though ardent as any elf in his knowing, others often mistook Rohrith’s outgoing nature for an unthinking one, whereas those who knew him well knew that though he acted boldly, it was ever with well-planned purpose. 

“There is one,” Rohrith confessed tightly. “He will not have me.” 

“He has refused you?!” Tathren gasped, shocked that any would deny one of the renown triplets, once offered. 

“His… his actions do everything to draw my comradely affection,” Rohrith elaborated. “But his heart is bolted shut. He claims to favor maids, but I have heard of his dalliances and… he seems to take no true pleasure from them. For sure, I know little of such things… but if my lover spoke thusly of our bed-play, I would quit him the very instant!” 

“You may not have experience, pen neth,” Cuthalion assured him. “But your lover’s heart knows well enough what softness is. If you say this elf is cold, then he must have suffered such that he would keep his heart, even from his own knowing. Is he of Sinda lineage?” 

“Aye,” Rohrith told him.

“Some of the elder ellon among their tribe have been known to dislike the mating of males,” Cuthalion remarked. “Even when their own desires turn that way. Might this be the trouble?” 

“I feel it is,” Rohrith agreed. “Though I have no evidence of any real trouble… merely dissatisfaction with his current bed partners.” 

“Are they numerous?” Tathren inquired. 

“At times,” Rohrith shrugged warily. “In truth, I try not to mark their numbers. I would not hear of such escapades, except that we are swordbrothers… dear friends, indeed, and I would console him, if he is in need of my ear.” 

“You are valiant, even in your heart’s agony,” Echoriath praised him. “Though I fear it will take some time, if not some great calamity, to open him to the true tenor of your regard. It is a delicate exercise, and one you cannot accomplish alone. He, too, must play a part, and for this he must be convinced of many foreign and unpalatable things.” 

“But if there is one who might affect him,” Tathren seconded. “One of such a heart as yours, gwanur, will know this triumph.” Rohrith nodded meekly in acknowledgement of this praise, but remained unconvinced. “In the meantime, my husband and I would be most glad to entertain you on your begetting day, plotting a second, equally devious surprise.” 

“Then plan a third, as well,” Brithor trumped him, reaching out to grip the arms of his maudlin twins. “Why should I spend such a momentous eve in the arms of an admirer, when my brothers are idle and lonely? We will stay the course together, gwenin, and take heart in our own, precious company.” 

Both Rohrith and Ciryon were madly content as a result of his declaration, pushing back their cloaks and squishing themselves into Brithor’s armchair. Their elders were similarly heartened by this decision, as well as the subsequent display of playful affection. 

Though the trials before them were daunting ones, as they flirted with adulthood, they may not yet have entirely cast off their gleeful elfling ways. 

 

End of Prologue


	2. Cuthalion’s Tale, Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one concerns Echoriath’s brother, Cuthalion, and his quest for the mate of his heart, after years of philandering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: While I think parts of this story can be understood on their own, I think it better to read the whole cycle to completely understand the world I’ve created and the character histories. The series is as follows: Part One is ‘In Earendil’s Light’, Part Two is ‘Under the Elen’, and the vastly larger Part Three is ‘Of Elbereth’s Bounty’. These Further Tales come into play after the last chapter of OEB, but before its epilogue.  
> WARNING: Yes, believe it or not, this particular tale contains a HET pairing. A return to the slash I love best comes with the next two tales, but this particular character prefers females, so I thought I would take a little holiday from m/m pairings, just to freshen things up a bit and make things challenging for myself (since non-slash pairings are the real challenge for me!). If you do not enjoy these kinds of things, then while I’ve appreciated your interest until now, I think this story is probably not for you. Things will return to their usual slashiness in the future, however, fear not. And for those brave enough to tackle this tale, I hope you enjoy.

Cuthalion’s Tale, Part One

 

Coirë, Yen 192, Fourth Age

The steady, sucking clop of hoof over springtime mulch had lulled him into reverie, though the wheezing wind was yet crisped by the last of winter’s frost. He gathered the reins within the folds of his fleece-lined cloak, blanketing the cape over the undulating rump of his constant steed, Belar. Though the tawny stallion had not yet seen a dozen seasons pass, what the spirited horse lacked in patience he made up for in hardiness; few of the road-wary veterans in his stables would have fallen into such a leisurely canter amidst whisks of wind as braising as steel wool, with the promise of a warm stall but a quick gallop through the trees. 

Yet Belar was of similar temperament to his master, crafty, relentless, and mercurial to a fault. He had implicitly sensed the fraught, fragile emotions that hibernated within his rider the winter long, his embittered reluctance to quit Otirion and the sour humor in which he returned home. This was patently unlike the sprightly elf who had reared him from his break from his mother’s womb, who, with cajoling hand and with firm hold, had trained him to lead the trade caravan north every autumn, had tempered his wilding ways, had taught him to measure out his boldness sparingly. Belar had accompanied his master north for three winters now. Each spring he grew more weighted, though they had long sold their wares and his rider rarely stopped to eat. When he did, he pecked sparsely at his lembas, like a scavenging crow, though the starved glint in his silver eyes was not dimmed by a sated belly. This last, meandering southward descent had been stretched out to the point of near exasperation on the horse’s part, for his master would regularly halt then not to make camp, nor to indulge him in an hour’s tender petting, but to sit atop some jagged crag lost in contemplation of the ether. 

As they trot through the final clearing, into the heart of the forest, Belar nevertheless slowed to a nearly casual advance, intuiting his rider’s inner conflict by his studied listlessness. Best to rouse him some, else he may be in for a shock. 

With the brim of his hood drooping perilously into his sightline, his trust in his steed almost too wholehearted for proper safety, Cuthalion was startled, to say the least, by the thwack of a spindly branch against his shoulder. Another, more limber length of bark scored across his chest, then another nearly scraped the skin from his cheek, though did accomplished the peeling back of his hood. He dodged the most treacherous bough with a curse, grumbling as he veered his ride back onto the middle way between the densely packed trees. 

Though he would never admit this to his bothersomely protective stallion, he was surprised to note their considerable advancement from the outer plains of the region. They had already progressed past the humble talans of lay-elves into the more elaborate compounds of the noble born; indeed, they would soon be but a league from the Lord’s sprawling estate, with ample risk of being spotted by his kindred. As he had hoped to sneak surreptitiously home to rest himself before the evening meal, he mindlessly steered Belar around a back road, only to realize his navigational error a moment later. He was forced, quite stupidly, to arc around the perimeter of the very compound he sought most intently to avoid, that of the vale’s esteemed Loremaster and his mate, the former marchwarden of Lothlorien. He spat an even more virulent string of curses at his well-intentioned steed, who no doubt plotted the entire ruse, wily as he had long proved himself to be. 

Wily by my master’s teaching, Belar seemed to snort back, though was penitent enough bow his proud head for a few paces. 

The shroud of winter yet loomed large over the vale, if the woods were so empty in early afternoon. The path between the Lord’s compound and the Loremaster’s halls was lined by literal banks of high grass where lilies blossomed in summertime, after the rain season overfilled the foot-pounded trough as amply any stream. A few paces beyond was a berry patch encircled by a round of cobapple trees. The budding orchard was cultivated by his grandmother and – astonishingly – the former marchwarden, for the sole purpose of replenishing their jam stores. In elflinghood he’d often escaped there to plot his latest mischief, the abundance of ripe fruit always serving his inspiration; in later years, he’d flirted there with many a ruddy-cheeked maid. In recent times, as the riding instructor for the vale’s school, he would often finish his lesson there to treat his pupils, as well as their enduring, famished horses. 

Twas during this guardianship that he had unwittingly sown the seeds of the hideaway’s treachery, as freely as his own with those too-willing maids. His two main charges, who took his lessons after many years of succor in their very infancy, now considered the oasis their own, cherished spot; as beloved for its tranquility as their revered tutor was for his care. Orinath and Miriel had the added luxury of living but steps from the orchard. As they had sprouted into adolescence, in addition to restricted autonomy, on his solitary visits he had often found them lurking above, curled into a spoon-shaped bough and devouring some dusty tome double their own size. Though he adored their avid, enrapturing company, he nevertheless required his own moments of solitude, of introspection a pair of lively elflings could not allow for long. The assonant tenor of his attitude towards the graceful maturity of one elfling in particular had caused further disharmony within him, such that he rarely sought other than her company there and certainly found no peace in his former sanctuary. 

In her forty-fifth year, Miriel’s exotic looks took on a lushness remarked by every maid-loving elf in the vale, but no heart was so devastated by her allure as his, her longtime tutor and her guardian from birth. That he had lead her through every stage of her growth only amplified the impact of her beauty upon him, concomitant with his shame at such improper thoughts. Adding to his torment was the frank, confidential manner of their friendship, as both she and her brother sought out his advisement in almost every matter, of curiosity, of trivial intrigue, or of grave import. The earnestness with which she bared her thoughts, hopes, mad theories and rosy-colored dreams to him was unparalleled among his acquaintances; though in dark moments it chafed him raw to know that he dwelt in the chastest berth of her bosom. When he was in her company, he would not forsake such a privilege for all the mithril in Moria. 

He himself was plagued with black visions of Haldir’s wrath, if he ever dared lay a hand on her. 

In the four eternal years since her initial blooming, his desire had become so embarrassingly evident – in his imagination – that he had quit the vale every winter, journeying north to sell his new crop of steeds at the trade fairs of Otirion. The summers kept his lecherous mind suitably occupied with instruction, the breeding of stallions, and other sundry travails, so his heady conversations with Miriel were often in sobering public, unless she chased after him for consolation, in which case her tears forced his affections to be doled out in proper course. Yet whether in ardent discussion, in lively play, or in sobbing confession, he ever adored her, not the blackest shade of her character was other than endearing to him. 

He loved her; he knew. That he was abjectly unworthy of one of such intellect, empathy, passion, and gentility was Elbereth’s cruelest trick yet upon him. Her status as his charge was but accidental injury, in comparison. 

Even before he peeked up into the pokey branches around the most accommodating bough in the tree ring, he knew she would be there; bundled in furs though blithe as a nightingale, mouthing the long-memorized verses of one of her favorite ballads. Hopelessly romantic despite her sharp-witted intuition, he had borne his swollen heart through her countless speculations, whims, flirtations with other younglings, these gangly suitors only marginally more worthy than himself by virtue of their age – or lack thereof - though disgustingly *unsuitable* to one of her exquisiteness. 

This springtime brought with it the added burden of her coming first majority, in but a month’s time, a consultation which he dreaded like a festering slice of a Nazgul’s blade. Which of her awkward peers, or, worse, one gentle gallant among his own, could he possibly champion as a fitting bed-tutor, when he would give his immortality to be the one to verse her in bodily love? He was grateful as never before for his family’s early summer trip to Gondolen, as he would likely miss any deepening of affection between Miriel and this phantom lover, or, most unsavory, her introduction to the thriving singles market here in Telperion. Much as he was revolted by the thought of any other elf touching her, he did fear his leave-taking might aversely affect her, as she needed the open ear of a confidant to relieve and to nourish her. Already he was acutely aware of the effect his winter absences had upon her, even his aspiring eyes could not fail to mark the misery that tinged every word of their autumnal farewells. 

This last autumn, she had outright pleaded with him to stay on, stealing into the stables far past her curfew and begging him while staving off thick-bellied tears. The vulnerability she had shown, the emphatic way she bequeathed him her most cutting weakness in that pregnant moment had nearly sickened him to grief. He did not know what might have transpired, if his grandmother had not interrupted them, having caught a glimpse of Miriel’s billowing robes in the distance as she admired the harvest moon. She had known immediately of his dire straights, of the agony of his conflicted position, of his utter desperation to be rid of the burden of the youngling’s heaving heart. After ushering Miriel back to her father’s house, she had sat longly with him, listening, counseling where she thought there was need, but ultimately praising him for his honorable behavior. She had teased that he had only to wait a year and all would be righted, but he could not accept this as an eventuality, not if he was to remain rightly sane. 

How could one of his wanton reputation win her heart, even think to deserve it? His experience was useful to her, but only as an advisor; she coveted his brute explanations, his survivor’s wisdom, not his bed. Miriel was too resolved to her romanticisms, and he had never been known for valor. Her knight would come, in time, to seal his fate. 

Sure as the sunrise, he discovered her in the rocking boughs above, her well-worn, self-inscribed reproduction of the Lay of Leithian balanced on her up-tucked knees. The velvet silk of her loose ebony hair snaked down the trunk that supported her, her tiger eyes aflame with the poignancy of the more tragic passages. By her brimming eyes, she had come to Luthien’s devastating choice, moralistic verses she would doubtlessly linger over for a quarter hour, at the briefest estimate. Her cheeks rose-bitten by the cold, she was even more lovely than he remembered, than his dreams could render her. His persnickety horse conspired with his welling heart to freeze a moment in wrongful contemplation. 

Anger and frustration fuelled the kick he heeled into Belar’s flanks, he prayed the steed’s taciturn grunt had not roused her from her reading. 

* 

Little more than a moment returned to the vale and already a tempest of hurt stirred within him. 

Cuthalion had raced the path from the stables to the shelter of his apartments, leapt furiously up their winding stairs, as if the black riders themselves were bearing down upon him. As he broke into the quietude of his common room, the agony fumed off him like the coal-dusk cape of a Nazgul’s cloak, though his body felt as nebulous as their bleak, invisible spirits. A chill wind shrieked through his tense limbs, though he’d long shut up the door. He scurried over to the hearth and tossed in an entire bundle of chopped logs, severed branches, and spindly kindling, though his stiff, icicle fingers shook such that he could barely light them. 

Only once the first flames licked up the stone walls of the hearth did he dare to drape his cloak across a chair, take measure of the dust moats and mildew the winter had gathered within. Nary a flake nor puff could be found, however. Instead, his cupboard was top-filled with dried goods, his larder with preserves, a lembas loaf had cooled on the high shelf and a plate of his favorite poppyseed biscuits awaited him by a jar of tea leaves, courtesy of his rather saintly grandmother. Echoriath, industrious as ever, had readied the apartment; Cuthalion wondered how the vale would ever do without his brother’s effortless and immaculate caretaking. 

To speak of boundless care, the silver elf noted wryly, as an impassioned groan sounded from the terrace beyond. 

Curious as to how they could bear to couple in such inclimate conditions, he skulked over to the kitchen window, then peered out over the glass balcony that stretched between the two mallorn trees that berthed their fine apartments. Tucked hotly into a throng of furs upon a fat-cushioned divan, the longly bonded elves that were his twin and his cousin glowed as only the most ardent of lovers could, tippled and languid as they were with afterglow. Twined as two caterpillars in the loftiest of cocoons, Tathren whispered intently to his beloved of some anecdotal matter, his main points underlined by curt gesticulations. Echoriath was thoroughly engrossed, as always, by his husband’s conversation, giving the golden elf a meaningful squeeze, a quirk of his lips, or even a nip of a kiss to signal his continued interest. 

Over the nearly four decades of their binding, Cuthalion had had ample opportunity to observe their rapt interactions, often attempting to apply these hints in his own liaisons, but with little success. He was a seducer by nature, while they were lovers. He knew how to ease a skittish elf into the luxuries of bodily melding, while they had mastered the nourishment of a partner’s flesh, spirit, and soul. Tathren and Echo had not spent a night apart since their binding rites, a constancy he could not help but envy. He had often begged his brother to learn him some of these loving ways, but Echoriath would only insist that when he met his match, his forever mate, his heart would intuitively know how to engulf her in its flame. 

A further veil of despair shroud him at this prolonged sight of them, so he turned to fill his kettle from the tap. 

Cuthalion had just wrenched the steaming pot from the fire, when a tap sounded on his terrace door. He was sunk into his brother’s arms within seconds, the warmth of his affection fiercer and more enveloping than any hearth, blanket, or frothing mug. Tathren soon joined the huddle, so that Cuthalion, caught amidst the gushing outflow of their binding channel, lightened his mood some, despite himself. Few could resist such a hurt-balming thrall, as evidenced by the ample, wilding adolescent populace of Erestor’s school, product of their long ago love-cast. He had himself instructed all forty-eight that remained in horse-rearing, they had had to build two additional stables and breed a decade’s worth of colts just to provide each with a pony. The oat stores alone had kept the shipyard in a frenzy for months. 

“How do you fare, nin bellas?” Echoriath inquired, as they settled around his table to tea and biscuits. “Is Belar half-lame from the weight of your coffers? You left with quite a herd, autumn last.” 

“That mad horse could ride back to Otirion in a blink,” Cuthalion chuckled softly. “Though my yield was indeed plentiful. Enough for a newly home, if you are yet keen to build it, gwanur.” 

“He has been rabid as your stallion with notions,” Tathren grinned, in palpable admiration. “His study is papered with designs, every humble stroll we take through the wood fires him anew. I pray he has not tired himself of the task, as he has build and rebuilt your new residence a thousand times in his mind’s eye!” 

Echoriath blushed, but did not contradict his knowing husband. “I would not break ground before the design is perfected. My brother deserves no less than the finest construction in the vale, even more majestic than our own prospective home.”

“Verily, Echo, you need not expend such efforts on my behalf,” Cuthalion murmured, overcome by his twin’s dedication to the task, though hardly surprised. “Any design wrought from your genial hand would be vastly worthy.”

“The teapot will heed you, perhaps, Talion,” Tathren mused, with fondness. “Eons before my lush-featured mate.” Their stray hands wove tightly together beneath the table, their gazes locked, ever complicit. 

Cuthalion bristled openly at their distractedness, then pushed on: “And how have my two sweet lilies fared through the winter months? Gilded and giggly as ever?” 

“Aye, they are most delightfully taxing,” Echoriath told him, golden eyes sparkling at the thought of their giddy sisters, the flaxen-haired, identical twins Crissae and Hislome. “Ada-Dan is quite perturbed by their near relentless mindspeak, though Ada-Fin routinely assures him that maids do cherish their secrets. I, myself, understand their innocuous discussions well enough, though I would never dare reveal this to them.” With a slightly calculating smile, he ventured further. “They have missed you keenly, as has our youngling aunt. Indeed, there seems no maid of our kin nor pupil under your exceptional tutelage who has not wanted for you over the winter. One in particular has been most… fervent, in her appeals for news.” 

His manner instantly terse, Cuthalion retorted: “Majority is upon her. She has need of her confessor’s ear.” 

“Methinks tis not but an open ear that will tend her most grating needs,” Tathren gently suggested. “She is entirely and quite voluptuously bloomed, Talion; her desires at their ripest. She would soon shed her maidenhood.” 

“I will, no doubt, hear much of her suitors,” Cuthalion almost snapped back, his lonely gaze trenched in his lap. “I must visit the training fields, so as to properly advise her.” 

Tathren and Echoriath shared a pointed look, steeling themselves for the brewing quarrel. 

“I see you have taken considerable leave from our dulcet vale,” Tathren remarked. “But you have yet to quit your torment. Did you find no ease in the northlands?” 

“I sought neither ease nor remedy,” Cuthalion sharply replied. “Only the briefest respite. Denied, as all else, though rightly so. I am no conjurer. How could I convince my very flesh to fire for a stranger, when my heart is roused by intimate thought of her alone.” When their blunt stares would not cease to accost him, he elaborated. “Twas wrongheaded of me to seek out the arms of another, even for… a flash of relief. The Valar protect her well, I was not even allowed my betrayal.” 

“Tis no betrayal, Talion, when you have yet to declare your love,” Echo soothed him, with a clasp to his arm. “When you covet one of tender years, who has yet to reconcile the stirrings within with the love she bears her friend and teacher. Though I believe you may discover that her maturity in this nears its completion. The winter changed her. Your absence…” 

“With maturity comes revelation, *aye*,” Cuthalion retorted, misery clanking down upon him. “She will soon learn of the many coarse and grayed feathers that have long cosseted her tutor’s prideful plumage. The gobbles of gossips will reach her pearldrop ears and she will know me for a wanton cock, renowned for crowing his conquests about the ale halls, strutting his latest hen before the clucking maids he’d once tossed over, and routing about the nethers of nearly half the available maids in the vale. So piffle-headed and insatiable that he could not wait out the five years till her majority, flying up to Otirion every winter to sate himself with plucky courtesans, who hissed at his despondency and mocked his restless heart as unconquerable, like magpies over crumbs; though even that is ended, in these last, impotent years abroad. Not in my wildest imaginings could I ever prove worthy of her, nor, once appraised of my repute, will she herself counter this bleak description of my wares.”

“How dare you speak such injury against the worth of my goodly cousin?” Tathren impressed upon him. “Who has been a sterling brother to my own dearly love, a cousin of peerless worth, ever-ready with some merriment to cheer you. Whose skilled touch never left a maid unpleased, scornful, or self-berating, but encouraged them to seek out their treasured ones and their own pleasure in other lovers. Who nobly sought out those courtesans so his heart could keep her chastity in elflinghood, who rears horses as one might babes, who has played professor emeritus and was indeed amply meritorious to generations of eager minds. Who was guardian of esteemed vigilance, caregiver of implacable regard, and mischief-maker extraordinaire to the two bedazzled children of our beloved Loremaster; who would now rather grieve himself into oblivion, than chance his heart on the adoration of his own tutor’s fairest daughter. A maid who, by many accounts, does indeed adore him.” 

Cuthalion tore away from them, retreated to the hearth. Its by now roaring flames seared his cheeks red; they had grown terribly sallow, from heartsickness. His companions were soon behind him, waiting to unleash their succoring embrace until he wrung out his last wail. He would not, if he could spare himself, indulge them with despondency. 

“She seeks but my approval,” he hushly repeated. “Not my regard.” 

“Will you not even chance a declaration?” Echoriath asked delicately, sensing the fragility of his hold on self-possession. 

“And renege on my pledge to keep her?” he scoffed. “I would be no elf at all.” 

“You *will* be no elf at all,” Tathren underlined, when Echo could not. “The honor of this act of self-repression belies your own notions of unworthiness, Talion. But we have long known you worthy of a love’s bountiful care, so your continued belligerence concerns us only some. We are, however, concerned for your welfare. You will not keep Mandos at bay. How can you forgo this chance at love? How can you not dare? How can you keep veiled and severe what rages within you, when the alternative is so… bleak?”

“You have sought this phantom beloved since our tender years, Talion,” Echoriath seconded, on a richer and more poignant note. “Now that she has taken form, how can you turn from her care? How can one of your steady heart deny yourself any right to bliss?” He gripped his shoulders, suddenly, and spun him around, forcing as Cuthalion himself once might have a face to face confrontation. “I can think of no worthier elf, gwanur, none who has so longly quested for this privilege nor one more richly deserving. If you are not the elf to match her, then I am not your brother.”

With a strained sigh, Cuthalion bowed his head anew, as if his prayers might shepherd these words to the Valar above. 

“You are kind, and true, my dear ones,” Cuthalion rasped, forlorn. “But I am not deceived. My fortune has never been made in action, but ever in awaiting. Perhaps I am made for Mandos alone.” He halted their objections with a firm hand, made his meaning plain. “I would be a fool to deny her, as you say. But I will not seek her out. I will remain, as ever, her trusted confidante and her constant tutor. Tis the one grace I can gift her, of so few.” 

With that, he turned back to the fire, eager to feel its vivid burn on his somber, saddened face.

* * *

The day was sprightly as a newborn lamb gambling about the meadows, the coarse winds fled north as the crow flies and the wild roar of early spring weather was chastened to a pawing breeze. Kitted in a shapely, becoming frock the colors of a cat’s eye, Miriel sauntered through the westward glade, glad to be free of her cloying cloak and eager to reach the stables. 

Her errand was a most pressing one, though she was as anxious about its completion as she was its looming advent; she had lingered about the treeline for almost an hour, stirring up her courage and steeling herself for the precarious result. She was, as a maid of considerable pluck, poise, and yet unsung power, ready to seize destiny by the coils and squeeze out her share of fortune. This fearless will of hers gave little pause and garnered much praise in most things, but she was as yet untested in the gentle gilding of the delicate situation at hand. Indeed, she knew few maids who would so brazenly forgo tradition, but she was never one to give herself up entirely to unruly and taciturn fate. 

Though she did seek to give of herself, in the most intimate manner possible. 

She stuck a vigilant eye on the stable doors, as she approached, mindful of the coming or going of others. Most had abandoned their chores for a leisurely luncheon at this high hour, though the one she sought would barely pause to scarf down a lembas crust, let alone take leave of his charges, animal or otherwise. She adored how mindful he was of others, above and beyond his own needs, never one to forget a preference, fail to provide some vital requirement, or forgo a chance to warm you with his flattering regard. His attentions were peerless, meticulous, and emphatically genuine, she doubted a black thought ever even flit through his consciousness in regards to even a casual acquaintance. She had come to covet those earnest, heartful looks; in her early years she had relentlessly sought his approval, in recent ones any sign of change in the tenor of his care. 

She had found none, yet this did not deter her from pursuing him. If he ever felt even a patter of softness for her, she knew he would keep this yearning so close to his heart that she would never feel a lick of its flame. This encouraging thought quickened her step, she was resolved to catch him before his afternoon class was in session. 

Miriel wondered, not for the first time, if he would even agree to a private word. He had grown distant of late and no little pained, his sterling countenance dulled to a murky argent, grimed by palpable shame. He suffered his loneliness, his past, refusing himself even the simplest pleasure, save the teaching of younglings and the rearing of his prize horses. She knew not what catalyst had precipitated this scathing self-account, but she judged its force far too injurious to bear long. She so wanted to rouse him from these maudlin airs, to resurrect the mercurial elf who so charmed her with his wiles. She prayed this consultation would provoke some liveliness from him, if he did not take her to task for the mere suggestion of their coupling. 

She was, in his mind, an innocent, though she was by no means unaware of his past exploits about the saucy maids of the oft frivolous singletons that inhabited the vale. She was well acquainted with the intrigues and calamities of his rapscallion reputation among the elder ellyth, though those years seem passed by him now. Yet there was still no guarantee he would not agree to take majority rites with her purely for pleasure, or out of some misguided concept of honor, or merely because he wished the transition to be a gentle one for her. Indeed, she had longly debated with herself over whether all his potential reasons for agreement would be adequate to her purposes, if she could tolerate them, as she found herself, though so green and unknowing of such things, having fallen rather completely in love with him. 

After many readings, examinations, consultations with others and inner probing, she was sure it was love. She displayed all the signs of pining while he was away, and all the signs of blushing adoration, to her own consternation, when she was in his excellent company. Despite a few misguided flirtations at the dawn of her knowledge of physical desire, for the last three years she had wanted none but him, with the overzealous, flustering, and oftentimes broiling need of an elfling on the cusp of majority. In the early stages of her crush, tales told by other maids who had known him only provoked hot jealousy from her, as well as embarrassing flushes at their explicitness (the memory of his sensuous technique seemed to urge even the most conservative tongue towards lascivious revelation). 

In recent months, they had only served as fuel to her fantasies of him; her respect, admiration, and fondness soon coupled with a rather cheek-scorching desire within her. Ever the rabid student, she had ravenously sought out and raptly devoured these tales of swoon, seduction, and sexual ecstasy apparently unparalleled among the brash, lusty youths of Telperion. That the kind, giving, and patient tutor she knew was also secretly – or perhaps, upon reflection, not so secretly – a skilled and generous lover to every maid he had so tenderly claimed only made him more alluring to her. She wanted desperately to know his touch, to engage with these sensual talents, and to have him guide her, as he had in a plethora of other domains, into the ripeness of full maturity. 

She had only to convince him, by some unknowable and yet unlearned means, of her worthiness as a bed-partner. 

A maid of considerable force and purpose, Miriel had resolved not to shy from her desires. If she was to have him, in but a month’s time, then she must presently make this desire known to him, though perhaps she would save rash declarations of love for a later day. Such a bold act, she conceded, did not come without consequences; these she was perhaps less prepared to digest. However, she was firmly decided and must act now, else he would not have enough time to properly consider her proposal. 

If, indeed, he could bring himself to progress past utter, choking shock towards careful consideration. 

With a glance up at the towering mountain above and a deep, fortifying breath, she snuck through the stable doors without announcing herself.

*

Another had inadvertently waylaid his attentions, though her starshine graces would prove feeble competition; let alone her lineage. 

As she crept down the aisle between the stall rows, careful to yet conceal her presence, she noted Lalaith’s renown, familiar laugh and was cheered by its vivacity. Though she was nominally his aunt, the pair of silver elves looked as close as siblings, as they petted the hugely pregnant mare before them. Yet a decade from her majority, Lalaith was still blessed with the impish airs of childhood, argent eyes wondering at the kick of the babe within and hesitant fingers brushing over the soft hide. The newborn pony, once it emerged, would be hers to rear. Though Cuthalion murmured encouragements, the elfling was quite evidently daunted by this imminent responsibility; as such, he had no doubt kept her back from the noontime meal for some private assurances. 

Miriel felt her chest swell with remembrances of similarly stolen moments between them, with golden admiration at his patience, his thoughtfulness, and his knowing care. If she were to loose her boldest champion to a foolish gesture… 

She could not think on such things. She must trust in his nobility and act in accordance with her encroaching desires. 

Yet what a sterling specimen he made. Some of his earlier gloom polished up by the eagerness of his youngling charges and the import of their proper learning, he was radiant as a mithril bow; his limber frame sinuous as a Rohirric dagger and his silver hair like sheathes of steel. His leather breeches were cut to his muscled form, scuffed in patches from riding. His boots were heavy, to weight his step to keep the animals attuned to his presence among them, though his sleek chest was clothed in a worn, threadbare shirt, which frayed so at the collar that it nearly exposed all of his taut pectorals. As it was, a slice of rippled abdomen was exposed every time he reached to pet the beleaguered mare, which were ample and delightfully abundant. 

She was reminded of those lonely winter nights, when she would steal away to the stables to lay in the upper loft of hay, basking in the musky scent that so lingered on his skin. How many times had she dreamt of him coming home early, finding her asleep there, then waking her softly with the most luring of kisses… working his way between her thighs. Easing himself into her, as he would later ease the babe from its mother, filling her with heat and tenderness and loving...

She shook herself from this rosy-cheeked reverie, centered on the stomach-fluttering task at hand. 

Lalaith inadvertently aided in her plight, by insisting her Lord Adar would miss her soon. Cuthalion was visibly reluctant to part with her, not satisfied that the soothing had been entirely effective. As they quit the stall, he urged her towards a late-week appointment, insisting that the colt would only benefit from this early connection between them. Halfheartedly agreeing, Lalaith nevertheless leapt into his arms to have her hug, before skipping leisurely away. 

Only then did Cuthalion mark her presence, but drew a deep, rousing breath before he turned to greet her. She indeed startled him, when first he looked upon her; for a flash his unguarded, quicksilver eyes raked the sultry length of her, the palpably feral stare retreating behind gloom’s rapidly descending curtain.

“Well met, Miriel,” he smiled, but his visage was dull. When she but grinned impishly in reply, he tensely essayed an unusual compliment, as if to justify his earlier transgression. “Your dress is quite… flattering. The color of your eyes, hm? The fabrics are well chosen. Is it the work of one of your Naneth?” 

“Nay, Alincil fashioned it, on commission,” she explained, the naming of a former lover of his only further tensing him. “She thought the cut more becoming of a maid upon her majority. I am gladdened by your approval.” 

Cuthalion swallowed hard at this, cast his lingering eyes into the mare’s stall. “She’s in need of some refreshment, I fear. Will you watch her a moment?” 

He did not wait for her reply, but assumed her assent and strode hurriedly away, towards the back well. His step was stiff, almost military, void of its usual swagger, his arms clamped to his sides as if even their most gentle sway might unmoor him. Moving into the stall, she wondered again if she had chosen her revelation day well, as he seemed painfully overburdened by some personal trouble. Indeed, she had never known him to be so reserved, so bashful in his niceties; he had not even embraced her in welcome, the first time he had ever been so cold. As she mulled his strange behavior these last days – the few times they had seen each other – she became increasingly convinced that some incident had cuttingly affected him, some wrong overshadowed him to a degree she had never witnessed before, in all their years of friendship. 

Quitting the stall after a consoling pat to the mare, she was determined to seek him out in even more private quarters – away from his horse charges – to beg a quiet word, a confidence from one she herself had confided much to. This day, she would act his guardian, be his confessor and his comfort. 

She found him seated at the well, hollow bucket yet in hand, staring absently into the deep. Even his somnambulant senses did not miss her footfall, however, and he sprung up to complete his task, though too late to dissuade her from emphasizing the rightness of earlier conclusions. Refusing to allow this play of stability to continue, she lay a calming hand upon his, her fingers curled around as his clenched over the bucket rim. He flinched at her touch, and could be seen to inwardly upbraid himself for this, though Miriel quickly rested a warm, steady hand on his broad back. 

“The mare is well settled,” she cooed. “Come sit with me awhile.” 

Miriel sensed his protest in the violent arch of his shoulder blades, but he nevertheless complied. She laid the bucket aside and eased him down onto the sturdy stone ledge, then perched upon his lap so that they met eye to eye, as when she was small. When she was keeping tight some corrosive emotion, he would employ this blunt method to force the revelation of this weakness, to confront this insecurity and thereafter tackle it head-on. If he recognized this early tactic of his, he gave no sign of it, as he himself proved rather shy in face of her light, inquisitive gaze. 

“*Miriel*,” he sighed, with crushing weight. “Tis improper for a maid of your years-“

“Tut!” she silenced him, raising his face by his chin in a bold mimic of the sounds and the gestures he himself once used to urge her compliance. 

Once their eyes were locked in amiable understanding, she unclasped the gnarled-toothed clip that held back his hair and worked her soothing fingers through the silky silver locks, kneading the strained skin of his scalp. It was familiar to their quiet time, born of childhood merriment; though its intent, in these borderline adult years, was far from childish or playful. He melted some beneath these tender ministrations, surrendered to her implacable will; after a time he was so docile she pressed a soft kiss to his brow. A tremor shot through him, which she took for the imminent loosening of his tongue. His hair completely unwound, she stroked from heavy head down the lissome lengths of his arms, which had woven, she was proud to see, around her waist, supporting the small of her back. 

Perhaps the mining of his sorrows could indeed wait awhile. This appeared to be the opportune time for her scarlet proposal. 

“Better, for all the horrible impropriety?” she queried, to which he essayed a wry smirk. 

“Infinitely,” he admitted, exhaling a long, cleansing breath. “If I would have thought my methods would be so cunningly used against me, I would have been more deliberate in my instruction… foot massages and the like.” 

“One could be attempted, if you wish,” she teased, her eyes suddenly wicked. 

“Nay, this fares well enough,” he dismissed, lowering his lids as she brushed a finger over his cheek. “You will make a fine mate to some fortunate elf, as ever I suspected.” 

Miriel bristled some at this insinuation, but keenly sought to turn the comment to her advantage. 

“And would you yourself not be so blessed by fortune?” she boldly inquired, which flew his eyes wide open. 

“How now?” he coughed, his shoulders becoming newly rigid. “Miriel, I –“

“I have called on an errand of considerable import, Talion,” she told him, tiger eyes suddenly pleading for his unbroken regard. “Will you attend me?” 

“As you wish,” he whispered, though the tremors vengefully returned. 

Rallying her courage, she began: “In but a month’s time, as you know, my fiftieth begetting day will occur and with it comes my majority.”

“I feared this might be the matter of our conversation,” he interrupted, before she could take a second breath. “I thought you might wish to consult with me, Miriel, but… I do not think this is wise. Your Naneth are much better suited to such things, or if you would have judgment of some worthy ellon, perhaps you should ask your brother…”

“My brother!” she exclaimed, but was not angered. “To speak of one in need of your counsel… but you seek only to deter me from my path.” With a blush, she risked an early interpretation of his reaction, analysis being her bread and butter. “Perhaps you have guessed ahead the purpose of my call?” 

Cuthalion was struck rather dumb by her insinuation, confusion writ across his perplexed features. 

“Is something amiss?” he asked intently, worried that he had overlooked some sign of distress, ever the vigilant guardian. He instinctively drew her closer in, cinched his arms around her slender waist. “Has some idiot suitor denied you?” 

“I have yet to offer myself,” she conceded, a flint of mercury lining her tone. “Though I seem to have piqued his interest, at least momentarily.” She schooled herself, then played her gambit. “Talion, I know I am yet innocent of the world, but it is for that reason that I would… I would have the finest of tutors teach me of this wondrous and overwhelming act of bodily love. Though you have mightily struggled to keep the knowledge from me, other maids have loose tongues, and I… I know how esteemed your talents are among them.” He visibly bit back at curse at this news, but could not stop her words to provide some halting explanation. He was so incensed by the thought of those traitorous gossips he had so well treated, that he almost missed her proposition entirely. “Might you not, as your greatest of all gifts to me… upon that most honored of begetting days… introduce me to the ways of loving?”

Cuthalion was so floored by her question, he nearly fell back into the well. 

“Y-you wish to… for *me* to…?” he sputtered, suddenly only too acutely aware of her velvet proximity, of her prime position on his lap. 

“Take my minority from me, aye,” she pushed valiantly on, though her cheeks burned like a forge iron. Desperate to convince him of her worthiness, she hoped some rather overt confessions might make his mind. “Even before your long absence, a… a desire for you awakened. I knew it was not proper, as you say, but I could not help myself. I long for your… your attentions. To be held not as a charge, but as one cherished… to be touched, by one of your beauty… your heart… in truth, it is no less than my dearest wish.” 

To her surprise, his quicksilver eyes instantly sparked with feeling. He cupped her face with such delicate tenderness, she knew she would have her answer in his kiss. Cuthalion, *her* Talion, softed the most gentle of kisses over her pillowy lips, his own barely repressing a palpable fever. To her dismay, he did not linger long, but pulled carefully away to voice her a formal answer. 

“Nothing would give me greater joy,” he whispered, shaken by the momentous occasion. Her almond-shaped eyes were so intently fixed on him, it was all he could do not to sweep her up in his arms and kiss her senseless. “But forgive me, my sweet one… my tiger-hearted one for being so forthright! I must, for sake of my own peace, ask after your intentions.” 

“M-my intentions?” she retorted, unsure of his meaning. A chill pricked up her spine. Was she already so out of her depth that such a simple request was so cryptic to her?

“Aye,” Talion responded encouragingly. “Would you wish merely for an introduction into the loving arts or is this… might I… have you asked me so in advance that we might… court some?” 

Miriel’s eyes suddenly went impossibly wide; she could not keep a radiant smile from her lips, far from the usual demure, enigmatic lip-nibble he had come to expect. Not a matter of experience, then, but a matter of involvement. She almost threw herself against him, but knew this immature gesture would only dissuade him from what by all signs, sights, and veiled admissions was the emphatic implication of his utter besotting. His anxious mithril eyes sought to pierce her very soul with their desperation at the endless wait for her reply; all at once she understood the last few years entirely, his distance, his absences, his formal behavior, and his wretched fear when she pleaded with him to remain last fall. His coyness belied the fact that he offered himself in his entirety, not just fount of knowledge or tutelage in the love-arts, but love itself. 

Pure, enrapturing love. 

She knew then that he adored her, had adored her all this time… and by the quiet desolation that slowly encroached upon his seized features, felt terribly vulnerable for it. Her honor-bound guardian had suffered for wanting her; her teeming mind saw everything in that breathless instant, all his agony, his self-berating, how viciously he must have scolded himself and how arduously he must have sought punishment. Needlessly, for there was no shame in claiming what was ever his. She must underline this, she must force him to understand how she loved him…

The kiss was tremulous, at best, unsure and unknowing, but such relief engulfed him that he met her, matched her, suckling longly on her plump, pink lips as permission for such indulgence had been emphatically granted. A flick of tongue before they broke hinted at her taste, but he was so blindsided by this unexpected request, by love’s revelation, that he dared not tempt fate by drinking too amply of her sweetness. Instead, he settled her dizzy head on his shoulder and held her as he had always dreamed, thinking, for the first time in years, of his laurelled future. 

Miriel was both pleased and provoked by this tenderness, restless even as she nestled further into his embrace. The month, she feared, would be endless. 

“My sweet one,” he beckoned, after an extended, rapturous silence. “I fear you will not understand… but I must declare my intentions to your fathers. They were *my* tutors, once upon a time, and I could not disrespect them, nor act directly against my oath to them-“

“Shush,” she mischievously commanded, before plucking another kiss from him. “I fear it will be my charge to teach you that I am not some unreasonable elfling of cyclonic moods, my dear gallant. I know well of your guardian ways. I have prepared my fathers to expect such an audience… though in truth they know not from whom they should expect it.”

“They will be thunderstruck,” Cuthalion chuckled, though he might have wept. It was no little thing to seek the favors of the elfling so long under your charge, and from her fathers, no less. “Miriel, what if they refuse me?” 

“They cannot refuse you courtship rights,” she reasoned, curling tighter against him. “I am in no hurry to sacrifice my maidenhood, but do not – in that overprotective mind of yours – take this to mean I am unwilling. I say merely that if they wish for us to delay awhile, to properly digest the fact of our togetherness… then I am amenable to such a resolution.” She giggled, then added a jibe. “If you can keep yourself from corrupting me.” 

“Barely, but I might manage it,” he laughed heartily, still stunned by the day’s tumultuous turn of events. 

Just as he had grown somewhat accustomed to the feel of her in his arms, she wrestled reluctantly out and yanked him up to his feet. 

“Off with you, then!” she chided mirthfully, tiger eyes glinting with unabashed affection. “You have little time to dally about, dear heart, as the afternoon grows long and I would take a stroll with my newly beau come evening.” 

Impassioned by her flirty gaze, by the lazy twine of their fingers, by the very sight of his hard-won lady, Cuthalion seized her up and stole a sizzling kiss from her saucy, taunting mouth. 

“You are the loveliest creature around,” he swore, catching her on a swoon. 

With doe-eyes she watched him stride away, and praised the heavens for blessing her with boldness. 

 

End of Part One


	3. Cuthalion’s Tale  -- Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a companion piece to Of Elbereth’s Bounty, which takes place between the action of the final chapter (16) and the epilogue, set centuries in the future. Some of the characters from OEB deserved to have their own stories wrapped up outside of the actual narrative of that tale. This one concerns Echoriath’s brother, Cuthalion, and his quest for the mate of his heart, after years of philandering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: While I think parts of this story can be understood on their own, I think it better to read the whole cycle to completely understand the world I’ve created and the character histories. The series is as follows: Part One is ‘In Earendil’s Light’, Part Two is ‘Under the Elen’, and the vastly larger Part Three is ‘Of Elbereth’s Bounty’. These Further Tales come into play after the last chapter of OEB, but before its epilogue.  
> WARNING: Yes, believe it or not, this particular tale contains a HET pairing. A return to the slash I love best comes with the next two tales, but this particular character prefers females, so I thought I would take a little holiday from m/m pairings, just to freshen things up a bit and make things challenging for myself (since non-slash pairings are the real challenge for me!). If you do not enjoy these kinds of things, then while I’ve appreciated your interest until now, I think this story is probably not for you. Things will return to their usual slashiness in the future, however, fear not. And for those brave enough to tackle this tale, I hope you enjoy.

Cuthalion’s Tale – Part Two

Coirë, Yen 192, Fourth Age

Every bleat, yelp, and whine that broke from the surgery jabbed like a slit knife into the taut flesh of his chest. Strung tight and wiry as a Galadhrim’s bow, Elladan was perched on the edge of his husband’s knees as if a hunter atop a craggy lookout, poised to strike a clean, cutting blow. His sting-swollen arm itched something ferocious, but he dared not scratch, both as example to his horribly suffering little ones and since Glorfindel would likely snatch his hand away, only doubling the pain. 

Though his pale brow was also furrowed with concern, Glorfindel was proving himself, as ever, the model husband; stroking a warm touch over the spiked vertebrae of his back, roping an anchor-arm around his middle, and humming a familiar folk tune to soothe him. If their far-too-curious daughters caught a wisp of the lilting refrain within, then all the better. Their two, terribly precocious girls had somehow been blessed/cursed with an overabundance of enthusiasm for the natural world, which too often landed them, as in the current circumstance, in the care of the vale’s Lord and Loremaster within these very same Healing Halls, their squeamish fathers banished to the waiting room beyond, which had all the dreadful charm of Mandos itself (or so Glorfindel would gripe). 

Little wonder Elrohir and Legolas had Tinuviel on the archery fields before she could hold a bow, Elladan reflected, as he picked at the calamine spattered scars attained during his unthinking rescue, only to have Glorfindel smack his roving fingers. He winced at the resulting burn, enough to sober him. If only their daughters were so easily learned. 

After incidents in foxholes, bird’s nests, and one particularly gruesome affair involving a pair of innocent tree-frogs, he and Glorfindel were beginning to consider investing in a small pet refuge and employing some veterinary experts to instruct their well-meaning twosome, as the tenderlings’ salvation efforts often resulted in further injury to the animal, rather than healing. Their latest undertaking, the renovation of the two hives in their grandmother’s expansive gardens, had been the most perilous yet, as evidenced by the twins endless cries from within. Though he ached for their suffering, Elladan had not been able to stand even the observation of Erestor and Elrond’s painstaking removal of the hundreds of stingers embedded in the raging red spores that speckled their normally lissome skin. Glorfindel’s behavior, ever protective, had not been any more supportable to the healers, so both fretting fathers had been relegated, once again, to the Mandos-like chamber to anguish through the echoes of their sobs. Celebrian, thankfully, had offered her services as nursemaid; Lalaith had joined her shortly after. 

Elladan cringed violently, as a twee-voiced shriek stabbed through the door. Hislome could be heard twittering reassurances to her sister Crissae, whose slick, angry face, he instinctively knew, was by now pressed hot into her neck. The twins bore through their myriad of injuries with remarkable solidarity, neither father could ever be as much comfort as their double’s constant presence, partnered as they were in mischief and in the more painful moments that followed. He and Glorfindel loved nothing more than to tuck in on rainy nights and play rapt audience to their manic chatter, their wilding tales of girls’ wisdom and woe so foreign to the experiences of two lifelong warriors. These precious times reminded Elladan of he and Elrohir’s early-years attention to Arwen, who often seemed likelier to have sprouted from the spinach patch than from their placid parents, though this connection to their fallen aunt brought its own sorrows and regrets.

He could never, however, regret their decision to increase the ranks of their family, nor the miraculous occurrence that had brought their daughters to being, troublesome as they oftentimes were. Yet what else could be expected from the offspring of two tenacious, gallant, and unyielding warriors? For they were, quite incredibly, the bedazzling product of Elladan and Glorfindel’s union. 

For nearly four decades, they had searched for a blithe and maternal ellyth they might partner with in the rearing of a lady-child. With few prospects in Telperion after the love-cast’s maddening population increase, they looked to the ancient villages of Vinyamar, Tirion, and its seaside vale, Otirion. Echoriath even sent letters to some likely friends in Gondolen, as Erestor did to Lindon, but to no avail. With the siring of so many new babes also came some fissures in Mandos’ titanic walls, many of the longtime fallen being released or reborn. With the youngest among them inching towards majority, Elladan had begun to despair and Glorfindel to resign himself to exceptional company of the glorious sons they were so blessed with. 

Until Elbereth, in her eternal grace, had heard the wailing hearts of two of her most hallowed champions, and answered with aplomb. 

One hush winter night, now nine years past, her handmaiden, Ilmare, was given solid form by the gracious Lady herself, then sent on a most visceral errand for one so lithe, so ephemeral. From their treetop residence, Glorfindel himself had remarked her descent from Taniquetil, like a slip of white-hot flame down the mountainside. When they had opened the door to her serene solicitations, her radiance had nearly felled them; though this subservience had served them well as she told them of Elbereth’s decree. 

She herself would be their Vessel. 

The Lady knew of their desires, of their peerless mutual devotion, thus had ordered her handmaiden to be not mother, but womb to their mingled seeds. After the performance of a sacred ritual, Elbereth’s germinating power would channel through her, combining their essences into one new being, which Ilmare would allow to grow within her for the requisite year. Never before had two ellon been so gifted by the Lady’s ethereal grace; she had chosen them, the revered Balrog-slayer and the valiant warrior-son of Elrond, to sire a babe who would be a living tribute to her elemental bounty over this earth. Neither the Lady’s nor the handmaid’s divinity, however, would be kept within their daughter. The child would be entirely theirs, as any child of an ellon/ellyth couple. As befitting two seasoned soldiers, both had instantly bowed before the handmaiden, quickly asking what they should do. 

Only later, once Ilmare had again wafted up to Taniquetil to wait out her pregnancy, had the magnitude of the Lady’s gift struck them, had Elladan wept in sundering joy at this unique opportunity, had Glorfindel crowed in ecstasy over the treetops of the vale, as they coupled in furious celebration. 

Elladan keenly remembered every heady second of the rite itself. As on their binding day, both had squeezed a spill of blood into a ready goblet and both drunk deep from its rich scarlet, though they had been careful to leave enough for the later spell. After lacing their hands together, Ilmare had whispered blushingly precise instructions for their love-play, then had left them to their sensual explorations. Both had felt deliciously intoxicated by the other, the floodgates of their binding channel thrown recklessly open by the blood-feed between them. They had ground and groaned together with rare, blistering fever, until both were quite sodden with their husband’s enraptured spending. Woozy with bliss, they had not marked Ilmare’s return through the haze of culling kisses, though the strange, soul-deep tug effected by her spell properly attuned them. They watched, agape, as she mixed the remnants of their bloods and their spooned-up seeds with an ensorcelled mithril implement, felt the sultry thrall of their child’s formation. They had soon become even more hotly embroiled, her earlier restrictions having been revoked; their slow coupling had created a crucible of molten feeling, an incubating bed of tender emotion in which their babe might come to being. 

Ilmare herself had seemed wonderstruck by these unfamiliar, palpable sensations deep within, clear evidence that Elbereth’s had delivered on her unbelievable promise and had spirited the seedling babe into her womb. The handmaiden had swore a vow of her own to keep their little one well, before departing, as her elven form could only be maintained in the care of the Lady herself. Glorfindel, thankfully, had had the wherewithal to gift Ilmare with a keepsake of his, an osfipal stone found the day of his rebirth and hung on a pendant for good fortune; Elladan had done the same with a locket of Arwen’s hair. Each night thereafter, they had sung prayers to the great Lady and her kindly handmaid, in return they had been able to listen to the haunting song of their growing babe. 

When, after a month, that one, pure voice diverged into an immaculate harmony, even Glorfindel had wept. 

Fuelled to arduous, effervescent existence by the dual flames of their brave fathers, Elladan would never forget the unrivalled existence of his miracle daughters, of golden locks, like the fiery Balrog-slayer, and of resilient silver eyes, like he himself. 

Only few in their immediate family knew the truth of their creation: his parents, his twin and bond-brother, his sister, and all their children. Though in facial features they resembled Elladan, most assumed them of Glorfindel’s siring. He and his husband yet considered whether to one day tell them the truth of their fashioning, perhaps to remain undecided until their majorities. Regardless, and despite their too-adventurous natures, they were his absolute treasures, dear as all his grown children, for what parent could be asked to choose between them? He could not wait to carry them home, for a long soak in a salted bath and yet another application of calamine. Their ambitions would be chastened, this night; they would be uncommonly attentive and adorably apologetic, which he and Glorfindel would ply to their advantage as they all snuggled by the hearthfire. 

Elladan was thus quite piqued by feeling, when another of his children wandered into the Healing Halls. Cuthalion sauntered about as if he’d been forcibly struck on the head, his dizzy smile of greeting indeed a sight for sore, worried eyes. Their silvery son had been so lonely, these last years, that Elladan and Glorfindel had been bereft over how to succor him; even their most patient efforts had not had even the faintest effect upon him. Yet this afternoon he seemed to veritably float over the floor. When they rose to meet him, Cuthalion embraced each, hard and heartful, for an exceptionally long while, his limber frame bristling with excitement, anticipation. When appraised of his sisters’ pain, he laughed almost too emphatically, but bunked down between his fathers to wait out their tending. Even in his more solemn moods, he would never miss a chance to tease and to brighten them; they were madly devoted to him in return. 

His two gilded lilies, as he called them. 

Cuthalion had managed to ensnare them both into coddling him for some time, speaking not a word in explanation of his odd behavior, but seeking out their consolation as he had not done in a hundred years. Elladan, though warmed by this rare mood, could not help but inquire after his son’s trouble, if trouble was indeed the cause of such suppleness. 

Cuthalion sighed in response, though without the usual weight, and whispered: “I have found her, Ada. My one.” Noting the astonished airs both his fathers’ faces had taken on, he filled in some brief details. “I had thought she would never have me, but she herself came soliciting my attentions, this day, and revealed herself to be as enamored with me as I… as I have so longly been with her. We have but begun our courtship, Ada, but my heart brims with its potential, with the truth I have ever known… I love her. I have won her overture, and before long I will win our eternity.” 

Try as they joyously did after such an overwhelming revelation, Elladan and Glorfindel could not squeeze the spark out of their bold, besotted son, who once loosed babbled on apace, until he had told the entire tale. Without, however, giving the slightest indication of which ellyth could be identified as his gracious beloved, a point of mild concern. 

Glorfindel, ever blunt, was the first to voice the indelible question: “And which lovely one will we one day have the good fortune of naming our bond-daughter.” 

Cuthalion flushed entirely ruddy, though the line of his lips was suddenly, severely drawn. 

“Tis… tis Miriel,” he softly replied. Giving his fathers a moment to digest this rather startling information, he continued after a generous while. “Fear not for my honor, dear ones. I have come to solicit Erestor’s approval of the match, to request his permission to court her. I have not acted rashly… indeed, I have not acted at all! Twas she who sought me out and showed me… of her desires.” When they remained silent, he hastened to qualify their status. “She is yet innocent, I swear upon my brother’s care!” 

Suddenly beset by acute worry, his pleading eyes flipped from one to the other, though neither yet bothered to respond. He was almost tearful by the time Elladan began to blush, his silver eyes locked in silent dialogue with his smirking husband. With a gloating snicker, Glorfindel gazed quite wickedly at his mate’s delightfully reddening countenance, before patting his bewildered son on the arm. 

“Do not be distressed, ioneth, we are most glad of your joy and heartily approve of the match,” Glorfindel insisted, though Elladan yet purpled by the instant. “Indeed, I have for some time anticipated such a revelation. Is that not so, melethron?” 

“Quite so,” Elladan choked out, unable to meet either pair of eyes, one rife with concern, the other with intense mirthfulness. 

“I hope you will not be dismayed by a small confession,” Glorfindel wolfishly continued. “But your Ada-Dan and I even enjoyed… a small wager, on this account.” 

“For Valar’s sake, bereth-nin!” Elladan snorted, by now turned almost fully away from them. 

“I admire your acuity, Ada-Fin,” Cuthalion praised him, guessing the salacious matter of this wager and growing rather mirthful himself. “I am not at all injured by this cunning observation… and dare not ask what price you will no doubt quite brazenly exact from my blushing father. Though… perhaps I should later advise Echoriath and Tathren that my sisters will be spending a few days in their care?” 

“Not for some time, I regret, as their bee-sores are dangerously plentiful,” Glorfindel sighed wistfully. “Perhaps in a few weeks time. The Valar have blessed you with a brief respite, meleth-nin.” 

Recovering himself, Elladan looked back upon his sterling son, his golden mate, and thought of his two ethereal, though aching, daughters in the surgery beyond. With explicit appreciation, he kissed Cuthalion’s silvery crown, then twined fingers with his yet taunting husband. 

“Aye, they have blessed me beyond compare,” he beamed, and quietly murmured his thanks to the Lady above. 

* * *

When Cuthalion unlatched the stable door, a pungent haze poured out, the air within still rank from the visceral scent of blood, birthing fluid, and horse sweat. Once ushered into the dim torchlight, he gently held her back; the shadow-play of the rippling flames alighting the angular lines of his face. He dotingly unfastened her heavy cloak, but left it to hang over her shoulders lest the evening chill should prick her. The night was uncommonly frosty; as they had walked the meadow grass crunched under their boots and their foggy breaths billowed before them. In the stalls, the steeds worked overtime to incubate their mares and newborn colts. 

Despite the cold, spring was upon them. Since early dawn, Cuthalion had been busy guiding his crowning crop of foals from their groaning mothers: four today, three the day before, next season he would better monitor the exploits of his studs. Miriel trailed behind him as he surveyed the dormant stalls for signs of distress. He found each budding family in quiet order; mothers being milked, colts burrowed in the hay, and fathers snorting fitfully to sound their proud approval. 

A peace came over him in this, his sanctuary. The strain of his arduous high season, coupled with the rigors of their courtship left him little time lately for replenishment. Though every gaze of his burnished mithril eyes told of his fulfillment in the vigilant care of both the herd and her own rambunctious self, at this late hour his usually creamy skin had paled sallow. His gait was made uneven by a twisted ankle, moreover he had begun to favor his right arm, but he had still squired her all the way from her family home, where they had dined with her fathers. Later, despite her pleas and protests, he would no doubt return her before curfew, attempting to conceal his limp the entire way back, swiftly lurching the path to his own talan after delivering her, and collapsing his battered body into his slim, lonely bed. 

What Miriel would not give to be there to succor him, to leisurely disrobe him, to work his tired muscles loose, to massage the wounded ankle and to wring a howling release from him, so that he might sleep heavily. 

The strictures of true courtship had him coiled with tension, she could feel it in the curl of his back when they kissed too longly, too intently. Though he would rather be emasculated than betray his oath to her fathers, even the most tender touch was embedded with a rawer meaning, only amplified by his cloying fatigue. He was slowly learning how to love her, but he knew very well how to lure her; despite the sterling aspirations of his gallant heart, his body could not lie. As such, he kept their kisses maddeningly chaste, his hands dug into a fold of garment and permanently clamped there; his lips roved no lower than her neck and his hips remained resolutely aloft of her skirts, let alone her nether regions. He manfully controlled his breaths, when whispering downy secrets in her ear; if she did not so adore him, she would have rallied herself into seducing him by now. Each night, after their evening stroll, he delivered her to the archway outside her father’s study, nearly purpled her palms with the fever of his kisses, but ever denied her mouth. She would slip into bed quaking with need, her thighs bruised from the effort of pressing them closed and her bosom heaving from overswell. Her dreams were scarlet, debauched affairs, their molten matter gleaned from the tellings of his past lovers; she would wake in a sticky, sodden mess of sheets, thinking him beside her. 

Worse than her imaginings was her own voracious curiosity. She had taken to stealing up on her frazzled beau in unguarded moments, hoping to catch him mooning (which she often did), underdressed in his offices (which, after several embarrassments, he grew cautious over), or, even more deliciously, aroused (as yet unsuccessful, though she had noted several inopportune bulges on stablehands after dallying in the fields with their sweethearts). Cuthalion took this gameliness in stride. Indeed Miriel believed he was privately glad, for as a result of this wily streak her majority night would certainly prove more spirited, his own burden of instruction lessened by her lively enthusiasm for all bawdy things. Although the expression of his own desire was tightly checked, he encouraged her explorations, answered even her most blush-inducing queries with admirable earnestness, and, as always, teased her mercilessly. She was heartened that the playful manner of their interactions had not changed with their emotional intimacy; if anything, they were even more easy with their banter and more cunning with their jests. 

She had never felt so free with anyone, whether sprawled about the river banks, brushing a new foal clean, or tucked into a booth at the ale hall amidst raucously debating companions. Indeed, it was little wonder he appeared so exhausted, as they had not spent an evening apart since the first day of her proposal. He’d escorted her to concerts in the Hall of Fire, the christening of a seaworthy vessel, a host of social events and the occasional cozy dinners with members of his family. He was a suitor beyond compare, invested in every aspect of her maturation, of their evolution as a couple and of the deepening of emotion between them. 

She had been pleased to observe, at dinner, that all her parents seemed similarly convinced. They had welcomed their former charge with indelible fondness, glowing at every show of his affection for her and engaging him in rabid conversation. His gentlemanliness greatly impressed them, as did his elaborate plans for the future of his husbandry enterprise. More precisely, *their* husbandry enterprise, as he never spoke of himself without reference to her companionship, her support, or their togetherness. Whatever activity Miriel chose for her life’s work would be incorporated into his grand scheme, ever attuned was he to her needs, challenges, and preferences, nothing would be decided upon without her consultation or her cares in mind. That he was preparing himself for the ultimate position in her eternal life, that of her bond-mate, was in crystalline evidence. 

Miriel could broke no objection, as she was increasingly like-minded. Her majority rites would be the final test, though she was in no hurry, at her young age, to be immediately bound. She did not doubt Cuthalion would wait as patiently for her hand as he had for her declaration of regard. 

Her parents, however, might prove more persistent. 

Only her brother was yet wrecked by this turn in their affection’s tide. His affront on Cuthalion’s honor went unvoiced at supper, but was clear enough by his bitter manner towards him. Upon her earlier confession of their couplehood, Orinath had raged against his tutor and his onetime great friend; he branded him traitorous to his vow of guardianship, their love a perversion of affections kindled in her infancy. That he himself grew softer towards one yet shelled in elflinghood’s delicate pearl - or so she had suspected for some time – only invigorated his ire. At table, he had simmered beside her and excused himself early, only his sire’s sharp looks keeping his tongue held. Cuthalion, unsurprisingly, had sworn to seek a private council with him come morn, but Miriel thought little would come of this, unless Orinath confessed himself and sought counsel of his own. 

A blunt kick against the stall beside roused her from this reverie; Cuthalion’s own steed, Belar, was surly this eve. Her silvery one chuckled at his upstart horse and fondly patted his rump, murmuring assurances that tomorrow they would take exercise, forgotten in these last, harrowing days. Atypically unguarded in his state of exhaustion, Cuthalion gathered her close against him and nuzzled hotly into her neck, drinking amply of her spicy, jasmine-laced scent. 

“Perhaps we should stud him to your mare,” he snickered into the silk of her skin. “Might settle him some.” 

“And would your unruliness be similarly settled?” she taunted, her tone studiously innocent. 

Disbelieving silver eyes met hers, though he essayed a sly smirk: “T’will be more glutted than sated come your begetting day, lovely one.” 

“I verily hope we shall feast, after such discomfiting famine,” she countered, pressing her wares quite fully against him. 

“Are you so hungry of late, meleth?” he questioned earnestly, somewhat taken aback by her eagerness. “You speak boldly for one who has not yet earned her place at table, nor even sampled the wine.”

“Whose fault is that?!” she protested, though was unable to do other than beam at him, for he was fair even when he lectured.

“You feel I have been neglectful?” he frowned, concerned, as ever, that he had not given his all for her. 

“Nay, you are a prince,” she insisted, stealing a tender, reassuring kiss. “Indeed, your courtliness is quite maddening, celeben-nin. I will be so pure on my begetting day that my fathers might barter me for dragon’s bane. Might you not… tarnish me some? Tis but a week before my majority rites…” 

With a saucy wink, she drew him towards the ladder, that most fortuitously led to the hayloft, the perfect hideaway for a few hours of experimentation. Cuthalion, however, stalled at the base, his reluctance glaring. Miriel well understood that this hesitation, that his earlier reserve, was not as much a matter of the preservation of her virginity, as it was of the dampening of the desires that besot him. He could have her easily enough, ply her easily enough; this is what terrified him. That he would behave towards her as he had to so many maids, that in this base action she would be but a conquest, not a love.

“As you are so convinced of your readiness,” Cuthalion confronted her, a knowing twine to his still pallid lips. “Do speak on the manner of your… tarnishing, awhile. What act is it that so dissatisfies? My kiss? My touch? What would indulge you?” 

“You ridicule me,” she remarked pointedly, playing him with purpose. “Do you think me so green as to know naught of loving? I have done my part in discovery, through books, consults, and your own timely lessons. Perhaps it is that very readiness that softens you. Perhaps I am not… supple enough?” 

His eyes darkened with regret, his weariness suddenly all too plain. 

“Forgive me, melethen,” he whispered, resting their foreheads together and sighing mightily. “I am somewhat overcome by the day’s events. Tis no little thing to face your fathers’ judgment, your mothers’ hawk-eyes, bear the brunt of your brother’s ire. I want only to deserve you, Miriel, to singe through my wanton reputation with the clear, shining tenor of my honorable behavior towards you. The vale has not longly forgotten my treatment of those maids, nor have I.”

“Yet to a one they sing your praises,” she underlined. “Not one has a harsh word towards you, only compliments galore, of your sweetness, of your skills, of the deliciously slow burn of your bed-play. Do I not deserve to know such a lover? Does such loving not do us both honor?” Cuthalion shut his eyes on a sigh, let her caressing arms envelop him, though he yet fought with himself, with his shame. “If you would attend me, I will answer this earlier query as to my desires. Principally, I wish to languish with my love awhile, nestled in the hay, feel his heat over me and let his weary head be pillowed on my bosom, for he has toiled like a titan this day. I would taste fully of his mouth, be taught to lap, lick, and suckle, for these are simple talents every lover should be equipped with.” A warm gush of exhalation steamed over her collar, so she paused to inquire after his approval. “Have I already exceeded my claim?” 

“Nay, you are quite spare, as yet,” he mumbled roughly, beginning to enjoy this game. “T’would be little trouble, and most pleasant indeed to so indulge you, beauty. What else?” 

“I would be touched,” she purred, daring to lure him up the ladder. “Roved. Fondled some, if you would be coarse; but I know you are fine and fair, so you will pet me like a kitten, then let me stroke over your chest in compensation. I seek no writhing, nor grinding, nor too intimate groping, merely gentle affections, for we must ever be judicious in our actions, lest we become too roused. I have no desire to lie in agony the night long, nor would I keep you from vital rest, meleth-nin.” 

“You lie in agony nightly, Miriel?” he asked, stunned by her candor. By this time, they were lounging side by side on a comfy pile of golden brambles, limbs loosely entwined; Cuthalion’s quicksilver eyes rapt on her sultry features, every word dropped from her tongue worth savoring. “I had not thought-“

“Of what? That maids could want so fervently?” she giggled at this sign of his apparent innocence in some vital ways of femininity. “We may have but a bud where you have a broad shaft, but do not by this evidence abuse the ardor of our needfulness.” Cuthalion coughed out his astonishment at her blunt terminology, but was nevertheless impressed, as ever, by her boldness. “Which brings to mind a final request. I recognize that this is quite an intimacy I ask of you, and that you are terribly weary… but might I… might I… feel some evidence of… of your arousal?” Her love was visibly taken aback, but by his gentled features not unwilling to hear her out. Nor, by his faint flush, unwilling to be touched. “You have gone to such lengths to conceal yourself, not to press me with this needful expression, but by doing so… you have injured me some, Talion. I have seen a fully roused stud mounting a mare, but I have not seen even a breech-covered bulge, nor felt the most fleeting press of my own beloved’s want of me.” She could not help but blush, though she did note how Cuthalion’s eyes blackened some. “And to hear such hallowed tales of how he is endowed…” 

As he gathered her into the cradle of his arms, he chuckled with prideful bemusement at this last utterance, too well aware of the blessings and the challenges of such an easily undone, though admirable, endowment. Miriel, however, would learn of all this in due time. For the moment, she wanted kissing, petting, and the tamest of assurances; how could a doting lover fail to comply? Without further, though rather enticing, discussion, he leaned her back into the hay and pressed his full weight over her, which elicited a soft, beguiling moan. 

Those baiting tiger eyes, the most vivid rendering of one’s desire he had ever been assaulted by, flashed gold, green, and copper, their flattering almond shape dangerously sultry. He smoothed a kiss over the snarl of her lips, lapped them apart, then delved into that lush mouth, careful not to abandon himself too entirely to sensation. One day her exotic features would quite willfully seduce him, perhaps enslave him, but for now she was his to treasure, to measure out his indulgence until he could be claimed by his prize. Skilled fingers did indeed journey over the plains of her raiment, the peeks of satiny skin. He shed his tunic to allow her requested discovery of his taut-muscled chest and strong, sinuous arms. 

To his delight, she reveled in this: suckling his neck, laving gleefully up his sternum, nibbling lasciviously at the tight skin over his navel and nipping experimentally at his peaked nipples. This elicited a yelp or two of his own, if only to thrill her. He instinctively understood that her own body was yet sacrosanct, that for all her eagerness she was not yet entirely prepared to bare herself to him, but he was happy enough to oblige her, if this helped in her readying. At first he had feared he might not be able to bear these playful, though genuinely rousing explorations, but he now recognized that he was so exhausted, he would require an experienced lover’s stimulation to reach any hope of climax. His tented breeches currently provided evidence enough of his renown endowment, which had not gone unremarked by his light-headed lady. 

Miriel proper herself up on an elbow and took hot-cheeked appraisal of him; he was easily the most stunning creature she had ever seen. 

“You are so… masculine, Talion,” she remarked, a potent glow in the ever-shifting hues of her cat’s eyes. “One would think you a peredhil.” 

“I have some faint traces of man,” he noted hushly, as astounded by her own lovingly disheveled beauty. She plucked another kiss, before returning to her admiration. “I favor my grandmother’s line. The Dorians are rather broad-boned, for elves.” 

“I have always found you beautiful,” she admitted. “Though at this moment, you are the most sterling of elves imaginable. Exquisitely rendered, despite your… quite overwhelming virility.” 

When she stroked the length of his chest, he moaned in earnest; moved near to trembling by her words, the intensity of her gaze, the love blazing like a pyre from those once elusive eyes. He cautiously fingered his breech-laces, then, once her attention was locked, slowly unknotted them. He shifted his hips that they might be pushed down; this accomplished, he lay back to display himself. 

“Is this evidence enough of my desire, melethen?” he rasped, as she carefully molded to his side. 

Her head tucked into the crook of his arm, her warm breath skittering across his chest, Miriel was rapt upon him for some time yet. His lazy fingers teased through the silken sheathes of her hair, his pulse became languid. Eliciting a mumbled promise that she would wake him before midnight, the undulations beneath her cheek evened out, as he relaxed into slumber. He softened almost immediately, but she could not tare her eyes from a meticulous scrutiny of his bareness, from his limber legs down to his blistered feet, from his flat stomach up to his comely face. 

She knew then that he was entirely, eternally her own, by the ever-constant beat of his heart. 

* * * 

Amidst a whirlwind of willow down, he sprung up the stately stone steps and swept under the arched trellis, the blustery wind behind him yet chill with the last wisps of winter. The tinder-branched, budding elms about the courtyard were tremulous with the need to burst into bloom, the emergent summer restlessly awaited the balmy gusts that sped up from the south seas. His cloak whipping fiercely in his wake, he flew through the hush, reverent halls of the great library, his destination hidden, like the soundest of bird’s nests, in the eaves of the vaulted ceiling. 

Swinging around the griffon-bust banister, he shot up the spiral staircase that coiled down close to the eastern slope of the oval reading room, then, once atop, crept along the slender strip of landing, hugged to the bookshelf-wall, and paused to linger just aloft of the open doorway to Miriel’s hideaway come bedchamber. His lady was within; preparing her no doubt flawless and regal raiment for that night’s celebration. With long practiced stealth, he could, if he shifted just so, see the cascade of colored cloths spilled over the wardrobe, the three celestial-hued contenders laid out on the bed, the bureau strewn with clasps, beads, and other bejeweled finery. His treasured one, however, was - by the echo of her sure, sonorant voice - tucked up on the window sill, bearing through some final hour advice and encouragement from her two flustered Naneth. 

Cuthalion smirked at their fretfulness, but was also rather relieved that it was her exuberance that worried them and not his reputed experience. With implicit gentleness and considerable patience, they reminded their daughter of rather vital requirements for the majority rites’ success: the proper draught to prevent conception, the proper assurances from one’s bed-partner, the proper understanding that one night’s pleasuring did not equal an eternal commitment from either lover. He had expected a similar recitation from Erestor and Haldir, but no summons had come to the stables in the last month, save one invite to last evening’s supper. While the mothers were counseling temperance, the fathers beamed with pride over their couplehood’s earnest commencement and prospective resolution in a few decades time. He himself dared not yet anticipate what might never come to pass, lest feisty Miriel smell permanence on the wind and bolt as suddenly as an untamed colt. He would prove himself a worthy lover, as he had proved himself a worthy suitor over the last, frazzled month of their courtship; in time he may very well prove himself worthy of an altogether different kind of husbandry from one he was already devoted to. He would like nothing more than to prove her fathers prideful but knowing and be promised her hand. 

He prayed nightly for Elbereth’s blessing, already so abashedly grateful for the Lady’s favor and subtle influence in his romantic affairs. 

At his first, stolen peek of his own cherished one, lounging in the lower arc of the spherical window, the day’s promise coursed through him like a river’s rage. He watched her nod, smile, and sigh, beginning to chafe at their never-ending insistence, though always glad of their care. Yet behind the complacent meadow green of her eyes was vivid yellow flint, a spark that relished the knowledge of their week of secret, singeing explorations in the hayloft. How, under the guise of yet another leisurely stroll through the forest hollows, he had spirited her up to their soft bed of hay and, pillow-lipped, she had asked her well-planned question. His meticulously instructive answer had lead to various prepatory acts of his own devising, sultry acts of exposure and arousal designed to ready his overwrought pupil for her imminent majority rites. 

In the first weeks of their courtship, he had forgotten how ingrained into her character were her scholarly ways. She could not approach even coupling with confidence, if she did not feel sufficiently learned in foreplay or alerted to what manners in which their bodies might meld. Oftentimes, he did little other than mime a demonstration over her prone form or employ a prop to exemplify a certain technique. This had rarely elicited more than hot-cheeked embarrassment, though she had been keen on the details; afterwards she had taken shelter in his steady embrace, any further comments seared into the skin of his neck by her quick, unmanageable breaths. He had longed to see her own skin flush with blistering need, see her entirely undone by his loving, but this could wait the few short nights to her begetting day. He had checked his own braising desires by reminding himself what courage his guidance might inspire, what moments of blissful astonishment he might experience at her rabidly curious hands. 

Lissome, impish hands that had roamed quite brazenly over him, on those nights in their loft sanctuary, eager to map every patch of the taut landscape of his skin before baring her own. After raptly observing his naked form that first evening, she had carefully plotted her terrain, assuring herself that face, arms, and barrel-like torso were discovered entirely, before forging down into the silky silver bracken over his legs. His backside had required two nights of painstaking scrutiny, ending with a playful pinch to his left buttock. He had gone to great lengths to conceal the resulting expenditure, though she had gratefully been distracted by his accidental curse. The next night she had bandied about his hips and his navel for a considerable time, before he had gently urged her trembling fingers towards their intended destination. They had wrapped so delicately around him, he had been struck by the sensation’s resemblance to the brush of thistles in the long grass and had nearly lost all sense of reason, but the shudder of sudden fear that seized her had centered him to the moment, to its import. Strangely timid, she had swiftly withdrawn, murmuring that it would be unfair to overly provoke him. Her face had darkened with Erestorian pensiveness, but her eyes had shone with suppressed need. 

Reminded of the anguished nights she had earlier spoken of, he had wished he could somehow, innocuously spurn her towards release, for she had not betrayed more than a hint of her desire’s depth in all her engrossing explorations. She had been saving herself, he knew, for the majority rites, had been affected by his earlier troths to chivalry and to her honorable treatment. Heartened by her consideration, he had vowed anew that this night, that her introduction to the love-arts would be rapturous, thunderous, sundering. 

A vow he had every intention of keeping, if he could pry her away from her mothers awhile. 

Tuned in to the dying tones of their conversation, he stepped into view, but did not quit the entranceway, choosing instead to lean rather roguishly against the frame. He rested the small bouquet of aloedil blossoms, of the violet petals she most preferred, into the crook of his arm; a gift waiting to be proffered. Three pairs of flattering eyes were suddenly foist upon him, though only one simmered with unspeakable thoughts, glowed incandescent at his thoughtfulness. As she rose quite daintily to greet him, he matched her mysterious smile, avidly embroiled in her enigma. Her mothers followed to the door, their liking of this intrusion undecided. 

“What’s this?” Miriel glimmered with giddy approval. “It is just barely past noon, and I had not thought to meet you till evening.” 

“Am I unwelcome, then?” Cuthalion feigned hurt, but his quicksilver eyes spoke mischief. “I, who pilfered my brother’s greenhouse to present you with a humble bouquet on this, your hallowed begetting day. A trifle, true, and nothing compared to your own lushness, sweet one…” He offered her the flowers, which she quickly snatched up and emphatically drank in. “But the first gift of many more, for my lady grown so exquisitely fair.”

She was in his arms in an instant, her wolfine lips daring him to be bold. 

“Might this lady steal a kiss from her beau before he departs anew for the stables?” she asked coyly. “There are so many long and lonesome hours before sunset.” 

“Then, if your mothers are willing, let us take a stroll by the river instead,” he suggested, struggling to blight the mercury from his tone. 

Tiger eyes flashed in electric comprehension, a precocious tongue lapped away the resulting sharp-toothed smile, studiously sobering before she turned back. 

“Nana-lir! Nana-rina!” she pleaded, though rather piously. “May I?” 

“*Miriel*,” Alqualir, the one who had carried her, sighed, but was stayed from her disapproval by her mate. 

“As you are now an elf of majority,” Elerrina amended the unspoken objection. “You may do as you will. But do not, dear one, forget the time. Strolls may be a pleasant distraction, but you will be sore indeed if there is not time enough to dress for the occasion. The greater part of the realm will attend you, this eve.” 

“I swear to return her before Arien dips below the treeline,” Cuthalion himself promised them, playing them with effortless charm. “As I myself must wring from this impudent elf before you a suitor becoming such a one as your dearly daughter.”

“By your gracious words,” Alqualir quietly approved. “The task already nears completion.” 

“Take your ease,” Elerrina seconded, after fetching Miriel her cloak. “Enjoy the day.” 

Cuthalion himself fastened the clasp, snipping a bloom from the bouquet to perch behind her ear. Miriel dragged him out onto the landing before he could even bow in deference, brimming with irrepressible excitement at the rather easy accomplishment of his ruse. He didn’t doubt she knew of his deliciously impure intentions, though he could not guess, in their breakneck sprint out of doors, whether she had gleaned on to their molten core. 

Once free of her kindred’s enclosing compound and en route to the stables, Cuthalion found he was in no great hurry at all to return the gamesome, invigorating creature that was his beloved. Not three paces within the encircling round of the orchard, she pounced, pressing fervently to him and kissing his mouth with a wantonness no innocent should play at. 

“You are a prince to know me so well,” she praised between smoldering culls. “Though it grew so late I had begun to despair that you did not, after all, truly understand.” 

“Understand?” he rasped. He cupped her face to slow them some, wanting to savor her. 

As they were yet a goodly walk from their intended destination, he regretfully broke away their kiss, then latched an arm around her slim waist. She leaned so entirely against him that he almost carried her, so needful of his tenderness that she twined all their possible fingers together and lolled a lazy head on his shoulder. He should have known better than to think such an intellect even for a moment deceived. She knew very well why he lured her away so early, her complacence so terribly encouraging he thought twice of it, but shrugged this off when she purred into his neck as luxuriously as a cream-fatted cat. 

Who was he to deny what they both desired most, on this rightful day for his claim? 

“That the celebrations, though in my honor, are a chore,” she explained, distracted by his proximity. “An exhausting bore, at that, though I believe your very wicked presence will help to enliven them some. That I will be nearly listless from boorish chatter by their end and in no mood to be plucked from maidenhood at such an ungodly hour.” She halted their progress to face him straight, wanted no mistake in her meaning. “That I wish nothing more than to know your most intimate touch, and be feasted upon, rather than merely feasted, for the remainder of the afternoon.” 

Cuthalion smirked at her endless reserves of guile; though, in response, softed a caress over her insistent lips. 

“As you wish,” he whispered, then gestured towards the path. 

* 

With a gasp and a final quake, she sucked back a long draught of air, then expelled it in a heaving gush that trailed into a sigh. She sluiced her fingers down his sweaty back, gripped his buttocks firmly and held him in just a moment longer, letting the unctuous soak his love had summoned up from within her flood over, steeping him in her essence. His skin still broiling, streaming, he blanketed over her; their soul flames yet flirted and flattered. Caught in a fugue of heady, raucous feeling, she crushed their lips together as if to kiss the very spirit out of him, though he smiled quite dizzily when they broke off. Hardly straying a second from her arms, he gently extricated himself and inspected her for damage, his brow creasing at the sight of the garish, though unavoidable, streaks of blood across her thigh. 

She was no longer a girl. 

Deep, doting eyes of placid argent gazed reverently upon her, as he carefully stripped off the slick hairs that feathered around her face. He was humble, silent in passion’s wake, though those silver pools brimmed with feeling, speaking in pledges and troths no words could render nor voice could bear. He cleaned her as he had sullied her, with impossible tenderness; sowing kisses where he had maimed, bruised, or kneaded too fiercely, until her body seemed to hover above the sodden sheets, made entirely of ether and of emotion. He nestled them into a groove in the supple mattress so that she was cradled tight against him, as yet unable to quit caressing her cheeks, her brow, her lids, her chin… any and every possible plain or patch of her face. 

When Cuthalion had earlier lead her to the stables, she feared she’d been hopelessly misunderstood. Yet upon notice of the empty stalls, her pulse became dangerously fleet; such that she had no memory of skipping up the ladder, of Talion clanking up behind, not until the romanticized and re-imagined hayloft above was so magically revealed to her. Curtains of gauzy, crystalline tulle would keep them from prying eyes, while a flurry of candles would both warm and light them ever so becomingly. The bales had been cleared away, though their fresh, downy scent lingered everywhere, including the plump-pillowed bed in the center, white, pink, and gold petals spilled liberally over the silken sheets and across the floor planks. 

Miriel had shivered when strong, meaningful hands had rested on her shoulders, but not from trepidation. Her ebony hair had been draped aside, so that her neck might be properly suckled, as the full, muscular bulk of his virile frame had pressed into her back. Arms that had never before seemed so thick with meat had encircled her, had spun her around to meet a stare so sterling, so burnished with longing that she had nearly fainted away. 

“I would love you,” he had bluntly told her. “As I have with every breath, at every moment, since I held you as a babe in my arms. Before there was a maid that I adored, there was a child that I took pains to harbor; that guardian love is the source of my affection now, my parching desire for you, and I would at last drink of that fount, Miriel-nin. I would be moored and replenished by its bountiful force. Let me, melethron, let me be drowned in you at last…”

At her breathless assent, he had cupped her face, had kissed her as if she would shatter at the sparest nip of his lips; their embrace growing more fervent, more plentiful as feeling besotted them. His searching hands had known instinctively how to prickle and to tease her skin a scalding red, how best to tongue her scarlet lips apart, how to plunder her moist mouth to woozy distraction. By the time they had staggered over to the bed, she had almost clawed off the tunic he should have shed much earlier, tearing out clasps and fraying the seams in her ardor. He had shed the scrappy garment like his snake charmer’s scales, gazing at her with eyes so worshipful, so sick with admiration that she had thought she might turn to stone. 

Miriel had remembered, then, as he knelt before her, as he pressed his enraptured face between the crease of her legs, as his hot breath filmed over that immaculate crevice, that she was some manner of salvation for him. As he guided her down onto the bed, as he smoothed up her skirts, as he stroked over her trembling thighs and so gently eased them apart, she had recalled the many hushed conversations she’d inadvertently overheard between he and Echoriath, or he and Tathren, in which a desperate loneliness was made more explicit than his misguided past, in which he bemoaned his lack of everlasting companionship. Even in her most innocent years, she had yearned to fill that gaping void, to fuel him anew with the mercury that defined him, to be the flame that set him afire. As he sucked the soft of her thighs a violent crimson, caused her groin to burn as if seared with a forge iron and her nethers to melt to a viscous fluid, she had revivified all the stolen moments of preternatural understanding, of rapt endearment between them; at riding lessons in early years, later in the ripe-scented stalls, trouncing about the orchard, the endless sunflower fields, the river glades… moments of quiet thrall staring into his compassionate eyes, ever giving, ever caring. She had recognized that he had been her lover since the first, cannonical afternoon she’d been left under his guard, which had never after ceased to shield her, to shelter her. 

He was her sanctuary. 

A stab of fierce, unraveling need shot through her, when that rough tongue had laved over the very implement of her desire, a gnarl of nerves so acute she had thought she might be split in two. Her heart had surged with the force of her remembrances, had been engulfed by the blaze within her, love and lust smoldering into one brutal, ravishing wave of sensation. Cuthalion had masterfully steered the tides of feeling within her, riding each wave to higher and higher peaks, until she had crested, whimpering, sobbing his name. Just when she had been giddily floating in the wash of a rather addictive ecstasy, he had sailed her to even more intense levels of bliss, streaming from lake into river, river into the vast expanses of ocean, all this with constant, cunning swipes of his tongue. 

When at last he had felt she could take no more, he had left her writhing in a voluptuous daze while he wiped his mouth and shed his soiled breeches. They had been caught in a wild fit of giggles as he stripped her bare, no longer a whit bashful before one so generous with his intimacies; instead she had been rather eager to toy with his red, emphatic erection, learning well how to ply him to her adoring will. They had groped and tumbled about the bed with gleeful abandon, until a particularly poignant gaze smacked them sober. Their petting had turned earnest, ardent, his mithril eyes shimmering with unspeakable need. 

He’d tongued her to such volcanic eruptions earlier that her breaching was rather uneventful, save for the look of sheer, divine satisfaction that had overtaken him once embedded deep within the one he loved above all. Amidst his careful, knowing thrusts, the dull pain had flared into an altogether more incredible pleasure; by the visceral end both had crashed together, had cried out their hearts, blessed feeling rumbling like thunder through their slender frames. 

Miriel had never, in her most scandalous imaginings of him, come close to conjuring the feverish, lunatic spell of this overpowering act of love. 

As she lay twined with his yet baking body, she could not help but hunger for more. 

“How do you fare, meleth-nin?” Cuthalion hushly inquired, breaking through her reverie. His silver eyes shone as if they beheld some wondrous thing, his soft smile welcoming of confession. “Is there pain?” 

“Nay, there is only you, celeben,” she grinned rather wolfishly. “Pouring through me like molten mithril ore. Already I longed to be fired anew by your touch.” 

“My, but you are a wanton thing,” he chuckled, before snatching away another kiss. “Well, fear not for your endurance of the feasting. Now you have quite a variety of subjects to occupy your torrid mind. For instance: where you wish to be ravished, upon the midnight hour? Our present location, or perhaps one more… adventurous? What would be the manner of your ravishment? Slow and sensuous, or quick and later loving? Will I have you supple and compliant, or will you stake your claim upon my most willing person and learn how to work me to writhing?” 

“All such gluttonous delicacies,” Miriel purred, which nearly unmanned him. “Will I ever be truly sated?” 

“I pray not,” Cuthalion whispered, struck cold by this black vision’s cutting potential. “For I would keep you ever close, sweet one.” 

“Am I so sweetly after such using?” Miriel countered in jest, to lighten him. “I would have thought you’d fashioned me into a lover, one requiring an altogether more salacious appellation.” 

“There is but one endearment that my heart sings,” Cuthalion declared, loathe to quit his solemnity. “Meleth-nin. *Melethron*.” The kiss that took her mouth brooked no tease nor flirtation, but wrenched a pure note of ardor from her own. “I would not burden you with woes on such an anxious day, Miriel, but you must know… I must confess it…” His lids crinkled in the effort to shut back their brimming; he found succor in the arms that knit tightly around him, as if weaving him into the very fabric of her being. “I fear our end, if it ever came… would be the end of me.” 

The silky, lissome arms did not slink away, but cinched their vital hold. His face was shroud by a veil of ebony hair, a pink snarl of lips traced the leaf-slope of his ear. As befitting one of her implicit sagacity, she allowed herself a longly while to digest his words, this happening, the sudden tumult of her newly discovered majority and the impact of his momentous love troths. Though she kept him bound in her embrace, she forged inward, searching the sepia-toned caverns of her seemingly archaic soul for any shards of doubt, any un-mined recesses of corroded ore. 

Wherever she sought, she found only coves shimmering with mithril, the silver of his hair, the argent of his ancestors’ eyes.

“Then upon my second majority, melethen,” she murmured to him. “Your heart must add a more resonant chord to its noble choir of names. The most coveted chorus of all shall we both sing out, to a gathering of our dearest ones. If you will but raise your voice now in accordance with mine, to seal our pact, then in private moments your heart can name me ‘bereth’, even so many years before the fact.”

“*Miriel*,” he gasped, but could not deny the relief that threatened to drown him, drunk as he already was on her scent of jasmine and spices. “A vow of betrothal is a sacred compact-“

“Our bodies have been pledged by their joining in rapture,” she softly repliqued. “Ever have I held this act as sacred. Do not mistake my mercury or my boldness for idleness, Talion, for complacency or for naivety. I gave of myself to the one who I would have possess me. If I had been refused, there would have been no other.” 

Cuthalion’s quicksilver eyes met tenderly with her catlike own, their maddening mystery revealed in a flash of gold, an aura of laurelled, beaming amber. 

“Then at the dawn of your first century,” he swore, his regal face wrecked with emotion. “We will forge a living bond from what has been just now given breath, though ever has it lingered in our hearts. Within my eternal flame, that warms you as its own.”

“Within my forever spirit,” she completed the vow. “That mists about you like the sacred ether of Elbereth herself.” 

Their kiss sealed their troth, though its thrall tarried away the afternoon. 

* * * 

Late Summer, Yen 738, Fourth Age

Through the filmy, spectral mist that loomed over the creeping river poked spindly black boughs, the only measure of their proximity to the shore. A low gong sounded through the smog, heralding their approach to the dockyards. Midsummer haze, offspring of the oppressive heat, had mingled with the cottony billows of smoke from the forges to whitewash the riverside; only after the most castigating tirade of affronts he’d ever threatened a fellow inhabitant with and an arrogant retracing of his lineage had the keeper of the river mouth allowed them to sail inland from the sea, though with a veritable litany of cautions. All maritime traffic was being halted at the coast, all elves, animals, and supplies portaged into the vale by land due to the blinding haze; a entire day’s journey even in the fairest of weather. 

Cuthalion, however, had not a day to loose. 

Even the hardiest of seafarers shifted uneasily in their posts, the fog too dense by far to feign any semblance of calm. In the three weeks journey up from Gondolen, he’d come to know them all and they, him; not a one would dare counter him in his blood-severe insistence on pushing forth under such treacherous conditions, not when his lady-wife’s safety was in such ambiguous question. They did not honor him for his title, nor for his goodly repute, but because he knew them all by name and had taken generous time with each, if only to momentarily forget his grating, relentless fear for her, for his hard-won wife, his Miriel. 

Miriel, his nearly five hundred year bonded, his lover of fifty more, who had never in the sum of all that blissful time behaved so oddly. Mysteriously, if truth be told. He had prided himself, through all their golden time of marriage, on being the chest that kept her treasures safe, the guardian of her secret self, the one who had unraveled her enigma and was bequeathed her most cherished confidences. He had wondered, for those over-numerous nights on the black ocean, his brow dappled with the cold sweat of the despairing and his bunk uncomfortable in its very emptiness, if a misstep had so innocuously been taken, if he had unconscionably lost her precious trust. 

He had had weeks of staring over spare expanses of impenetrable sea to reconsider the rightness of the journey he’d just recently completed, at three months his longest absence from her. 

Word had come up from Gondolen that an avalanche had quite suddenly broke over their mountain patrol while encamped beside an elderly glacier, sparing the soldiers’ tents but encasing an entire fleet of horses in ice. The populace of their already paltry stables halved by this calamity, the High Council had ordered a new crop of foals from him; his entire springtime yield would need be shipped southward, for expert training among the crags. Miriel herself had encouraged him to broach the bargain he’d eventually struck, that some of their best riders would come north and they would all caravan the geldings through the southward pass. 

As ponies so terribly young rarely took well to sea travel, they would thereby grow up with the experience of mountain traversal and be at least half-readied by their midsummer arrival. Cuthalion had been reluctant to leave his sweetly wife so long, but she had judged the journey of great benefit to him, reasoning that his experience would aid the riders and, if he remained, he would fret the season-long for their well being. She had even been the one to propose a two month’s sojourn there for them, trysting in a cozy talan borrowed from his all-too-compliant brother. They had planned to reunite in three months at Gondolen; Miriel would depart after a two month to ensure she would be there to welcome him. She had shown no overabundant signs of distress upon his leave-taking, if ought she was excited for their holiday and urged him to make haste. 

They had rode through the ever-treacherous mountain pass in the usual time, but upon his advent there had been no eager, amorous wife to greet him. Merely a note, come on her expected ship and delivered by a family friend. 

Come home, Talion-nin. 

Ever her gallant, he had not questioned her unexpected summons, but immediately commissioned a ship. A crew of salty Tirion sailors had been waiting on some delayed stock to pay their passage; he had given them twice their due to speed north. The sparse parchment he’d scrutinized for any overlooked sign or hinting indication of the reason for her stay at their home. All he could discern was that the note was indeed in her hand, its inscription brief, but rich with intimate meaning. Through endless days of torment, at the mercy of the haunting unknown, he’d all but cursed the gods who would injure her the instant he left her, after half a millennia of vigilance and care. Worse still was the prospect that another had been harmed and she suffered through the agony of his or her demise alone. The denizens of Gondolen were fairly well-informed of happenings in Telperion, especially in a noble house, but not even the dockhands had heard news of any tragedy. 

Cuthalion had been, in all possible veins, at sea; his treasure buried far and well away. 

As they carefully steered the heavy-loaded ship into port, he gave them his heartfelt thanks for their companionship and promised them a night’s lodging in his Lord grandfather’s guest halls, but leapt off the vessel when it was still a rope-length from the dock. His boots pounded over the creaking planks in his rush into the yard; he spied a familiar face by the ship-builders’ galley. 

Ciryon, as was his immovable routine, had come to take luncheon with his new husband. After a longtime courtship, the couple had been bound just the previous summer; his bashful cousin could still be seen to glow with undaunted affection at having finally won his mate. Yet he saved a considerable amount of cheer for his kinsman, greeting him with an emphatic hug and inviting him to their table. Cuthalion regretfully declined, being possessed by only one, untamable notion. A notion in which Ciryon, apprentice in lore and official scrivener of the great library, may prove of some use to him. 

“Come now, Talion, you are wearied from the trials of the morn,” Ciryon amiably objected, though his obsidian eyes took on a shadow of concern for his cousin. “Surely Miriel herself would conscience some refreshment, before riding fast into the foggy woods.” 

“Is she presently occupied, then, in the library?” Cuthalion asked, grabbing his chance. “With her Adar?” 

Ciryon considered his reply a few beats too long for the anxious husband’s liking. 

“Master Erestor is in the Healing Halls, this day,” he told him, though he selected his words with meticulous care. “Miriel is there, as well. Tis for this that I am freed of my own duties awhile.”

Cuthalion was not fool enough to mistake his deliberate ambiguity. 

“The Healing Halls?” he questioned bluntly, too fearful to fake his trepidation. “Has she taken to midwifery, then?” When Ciryon withheld his answer for an even greater time, Cuthalion became frazzled with worry. “Has she been injured? Taken sick? Verily, cousin, I am at wit’s end with this ridiculous concealment…” 

“Go to her,” came the typically cryptic response. “She would that you see for yourself what has befallen her.” 

His simple words could not have had a more vivid effect upon him. With the curtest of farewells, he raced over to the small stables and loosed a courier horse, kicking the complacent creature into a ferocious gallop. He accomplished the half-hour journey in but a quarter, and in the fog no less, leaving the horse to nibble on the verdant lawn and sprinting up the steps to the somnolent Healing Hall. 

When he found the examination tables empty and the surgery abandoned, he blew out a long sigh of relief. Only slumbering, fractured children were bedded in the patients’ quarters, though he doubted Erestor would keep his sickly daughter there. The door to his study was ever so slightly ajar, the scent of savory broth, fresh breads, and sharp cheese wafted out from within. Luncheon. Of course! He inwardly defamed his wily cousin for such dramatics, outwardly composed himself. His dearly bonded should know nothing of his distress, as he had obviously worried his way up the coast for little reason at all. His mind did not linger over its own rashness, however; his unimpeachable devotion would have allowed no other reaction. He was suddenly assaulted by a milliard tiny aches, cramps, and stresses, as his nearly continual clench was finally laxed into something approximating ease. 

He would not be truly relaxed until he had an armful of his Miriel. 

After a gentle knock and a brief pause, he entered. Erestor muttered him in on a mouthful of his meal, but he was already behind her chair, wrapping tired arms around his wife’s inviting curves and drinking deep of her spiced jasmine scent. Rather than her usual, jubilant shriek, Miriel rose rather elegantly, flashing those wily, mystifying tiger eyes at him. By the curl of her lips, she kept some secret, but he was too heartened by the sight of her lush face to think on ought but the deepest, most searing embrace. 

Without a word, he tugged her to him, softing a ripe kiss over her thorn-pricked mouth and tenderly enveloping her. Erestor chuckled behind, but could not bring himself to interrupt them, even to insist on some form of greeting from his bond-son. Instead, he stole a last bite of cheese and slipped out the door, knowing he would be beckoned back soon enough. 

Cuthalion, for his part, was lost in sensual exploration of his beloved’s rather voluptuous person, though he did wonder at why she was so alluringly warm. Indeed, she seemed to be baking, as if his embrace were as potent as a hearth; for a time this did little but further enrapture him. She tasted as fresh as a peach, her buttery skin veritably glowing with health, but yet he could not shake the feeling that something was awry. When Miriel pressed their bodies together, he was further confounded by a strange pressure against his abdomen, one that had not been there before. She had, upon dizzy-minded reflection, seemed more curvy, but luxuriously so. Her bosom, for one, had somehow inflated during his absence. Perhaps her nipples had swelled for lack of teasing? He would have to kid her for this later… 

The round that butted into his stomach grew so persistent, he groped a hand down to investigate. 

He instantly wrenched back, glaring with shock. 

Miriel was radiant at his discovery, though her robes hid the evidence completely. If he had not embraced her, he would never have guessed. She was, after all, but three or so months along. With long-practiced patience, she guided his hand back to her newly plump belly. Quaking with inexpressible elation at this first, genuine touch, Cuthalion fell to his knees before her. He burrowed his face in the velvety folds of her dress, pressed his cheek to the firm, potent round, whispering his greeting, his instant devotion to their growing child. 

He had longed, in recent years, for fatherhood; as fervently as he had always longed for his wife’s love. His position as riding instructor at Erestor’s school had become his source of greatest fulfillment, after his dual charge as husband and as lord of animal husbandry. A child of their own to care for was not only the apotheosis of their bound love, but also a gift of most hallowed import to his mate, their union, and his family. Moreover, they had been undergoing conception-related trials for several decades, having decided to begin their family nearly seventy years ago. Elrond had repeatedly examined them both and decreed them hale as ever, the esteemed healer merely thought the time inopportune, for them and perhaps for the Valar. Elbereth would provide for them in all things through the course of their lives, he had predicted. 

That the Lady had at last done so, on the eve of his prolonged absence those many months ago, only affected him more profoundly. The night itself had otherwise been quite memorable indeed, the prospect of separation fusing them repeatedly, ravenously, until the very break of dawn. If he had known that their loving abandon would have produced such a gorgeous result, he would have left on a journey long ago. At present, Cuthalion found himself so overwhelmed with joy, he could not bring himself to ease his face away from the belly full of their sweetly babe, though yet but a minuscule, delicate seed within his Miriel. 

A sob broke above him, hot tears streaking down his beloved’s ruddy cheeks. He leapt up to succor her, the months of tension, of anticipation pouring out of her in a fierce display of emotion such as he had not witnessed since their binding ceremony. She dug as tight against him as she could manage, seeking proof of his scent, his touch, his strength and his unwavering affection; the endless wait, along with new, violent, nearly uncontrollable swerves of feeling, rendering her quite fragile of late. 

Though rabid with questions, Cuthalion rocked her through her fitful sorrow, after tucking them up in the corner of Erestor’s ramshackle sofa. He stopped her small bleats and needful whimpers with exultant kisses, his own face luminous with pride, with deep affection. Eventually, she centered herself, almost ashamed that she had carried on so long. With her usual pluck, she swept past her sadness; guiding his eager hand under her skirt and placing it on her bare bulge, so that he might have a direct connection to their babe’s balmy heat within. 

“How long have you known?” he inquired, his tongue tingling with the thousand queries to follow. 

“But two turns of the moon,” she elaborated. “I was rather poorly the week before I was to depart, so father insisted that I at least let him examine me for anything untowards. I cannot even imagine the ghastly sea-ride, if he had not discovered it.” 

“I wish I had been here, to see your look of wonder,” he sighed, but naught could honestly dim his smile. 

“Your response just now was payment enough for your absence then,” she essayed a grin of her own. “To think of how I needlessly worried over telling you! I have not, somehow, in all our bonded years truly understood your apparent longing…” 

“I have wanted for nothing else since I won your heart, melethron,” Cuthalion admitted, as yet unable to entirely absorb his good fortune. “To behold your plump, bountiful glory in your eleventh month, our child berthed between us as we love… Elbereth, the thought already fires me! To curl up by the hearth with our little elfling, telling tales, histories, teaching of our ancestors and their incredible lives… I must sing to the Valar, this night, pray everything goes well so that we might have many more.” 

“Then you best chant them out an entire chorale,” she teased, her mischievousness returned with a vengeance. “For you, son of Elrond’s line, have fatted me with twins.” Smiling wolfishly at his gaping mug, she demurred rather fetchingly. “Or so father suspects by my advanced size.” 

Speechless in reverent joy, Cuthalion could do naught but assault her with such a volley of fevered, demanding kisses, tugging up her skirts for an altogether more incendiary purpose. Though the flame of desire soon madly engulfed them, they took care that their affections be mellifluous, exuberant, and deeply heartfelt. They had babes to protect and to celebrate, as well as their eternal love.

Neither, in their embroilment, remarked the throw of the lock from without, as a proud grandfather assured that his dearest ones were allowed their intimacy. 

T’would be the last, he suspected, they would know for a goodly while. 

 

End of Cuthalion’s Tale


	4. Ciryon’s Tale, Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a companion piece to Of Elbereth’s Bounty, which takes place between the action of the final chapter (16) and the epilogue, set centuries in the future. Some of the characters from OEB deserved to have their own stories wrapped up outside of the actual narrative of that tale. This particular tale, along with the soon coming Rohrith’s Tale, concern the majority rites of two of Tathren’s triplet brothers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimers: Characters belong to that wily old wizard himself, Tolkien the Wise, the granddad of all 20th century fantasy lit. I serve at the pleasure of his estate and aim not for profit.   
> Author’s Note: While I think parts of this story can be understood on their own, I think it better to read the whole cycle, or at least Of Elbereth’s Bounty, to completely understand the world I’ve created and the character histories. The series is as follows: Part One is ‘In Earendil’s Light’, Part Two is ‘Under the Elen’, and the vastly larger Part Three is ‘Of Elbereth’s Bounty’.   
> Feedback: Would be delightful.   
> Dedication: To Eresse, as always.

Ciryon’s Tale – Part One

 

Summer, Year 194, Fourth Age

In the misty dusk of twilight, their eager faces lit by the smoky glow of the torches, the elves assembled before the marbled steps of the House of the Fountain.

When Brithor peaked around the natty frond of the curtains, the sweet, greasy smell of camphor wafted in, luring Rohrith to his side. Between their haloed silhouettes, the vast dark of the courtyard could be observed; the emblematic fountain at its center spilling forth multifoliate peals of freshwater, like a liquid rose of translucent gold. Six leaf-shaped beds of graceful blooms spread out, as if verdant tongues thirsty for their rejuvenating source, to delineate the main routes to the six major city districts: the coarse riverside, the ripe vineyards, the rich farmlands, the stoic mines, the effete embassy row, and the learned corridors of the academy. 

Guardian to each path was one of the six guild houses, where elven craftsmen from both Arda and Aman flocked to increase their skills, cotton with their peers, and ply their esteemed trade. Each stood in honor of one burned to ash by Balrog spew in Gondolin of old, each bore the exultant emblem of that laurelled house; fountain, tree, eagle, horse, star, and golden flower, the last of which shone, in the rosy balm of the sinking sun, from across the way. The art each championed was tailored to this guiding symbol, each banquet table saved a seat for the return of its fallen lord. 

Excepting the House of the Golden Flower, who had but recently celebrated the advent of its most revered and distinguished patron, the Balrog-slayer Glorfindel. 

This was but one of the milliard marvels their two year sojourn in Gondolen had bequeathed the sprightly triplets of Elrond’s line. Crouched at the base of an imposing column, Ciryon scanned their audience through his brothers’ limber legs, yet another sickly shriek of nerves howling up his spine. The unnerving sensation was by now only too common to him, as their time in the southlands had given him ample occasion for such pin-prick anxiety, usually but moments before some exhilarating or adventurous feat was attempted. Normally of a hesitant nature, his twins had waged a relentless battle with his inhibitions throughout their stay, which had, despite his reservations, lead to an abundance of unparalleled experiences, both unique and shared; though, in the bed-bound susurrations that always ended their days, no experience was truly kept private between them. Despite their often polarizing personalities, the triplets were, as ever, as one in solidarity and in mutual support. 

From their very docking in the harbor, of barren sands and of titanic crags, the place had overwhelmed Ciryon with intrigue. The contrasting landscape, the arrogant, often elegiac mountains that kept vigil over the bucolic valley, was enticingly foreign to one so accustomed to the shelter of rampant forests. The clash of rural hardiness with vaulting culture but further whetted his abject, unquenchable thirst for knowledge, offering his unsuspecting palette a veritable feast of ancient tomes, crafty techniques, and tantalizing governmental woes. For the past two years, Ciryon had gorged himself on both the rarest of delicacies and astonishing alternatives to the usual fare; his young mind challenged intellectually, spiritually, and socially, as his body was physically. 

Each morn, he would wake with the glorious dawn, break fast with his fathers, brothers, and sister, then present himself to his ever-bemused Ada-Hir. After delivering Rohrith to the House of the Eagle, also known as the Guild of Philosophy, Oratory, and Rhetoric, they would undertake some educational mission, be it a close conversation with a sage master, library research to elucidate some historical ambiguity, or a diplomatic session with the High Council. Though he adored both his fathers in equal measure, his Ada-Hir was at once his mentor, his friend, his most patient of tutors and his most heartening consolation, who consistently encouraged him in both his personal obsessions and his academic pursuits. 

Lest he hideaway in the library for his entire stay, Rohrith and Brithor took charge of his spirit’s enrichment, goading him with typically wily finesse into a wealth of sensory explorations, social gatherings, and wilding escapades. Gondolen was a place to be lived, not merely understood, and his mad twins were more than happy to twine him up in their string of madcap, if often half-cocked, adventures. From simple pleasures, such as stamping grapes in the winery, to more elaborate schemes, such as commandeering a skip to ride through the western rapids, to outright devious designs, such as stealing into the rafters of a coitus-cult house one night to observe the randy, ritualistic goings on, he reluctantly became their cherished accomplice, though he himself was wise enough to recognize how these antic exploits had urged him a bit further out of his shell’s comfort. 

All three brothers had matured considerably, and quite astoundingly, in these last few years of elflinghood. 

Rohrith had blossomed quite admirably into the natural leader all had long predicted he would become. In the bosom of his favored Guild, he had so developed his skills in oratory and debate that he already had a following of like-minded acolytes. Though all of tender years, these were Aman’s future lords and councilors. As Rohrith was already an ardent devotee of the sword, these bright ones trained with him, bantered with him, delved with him into the hotpoint questions of their age and toasted with him on many a casual eve on the guildhall steps. In Telperion, Rohrith’s training had him groomed as a future marchwarden; after his proclivities here, Legolas and Elrohir envisioned an altogether different position for their vital son. Their grandsire Elrond, arrived just a month before, had been particularly stunned at this becoming transformation, vowing to take him on as an apprentice upon their return. 

Brithor, for his part, had explored more sensual avenues, when not busy shadowing Tathren about the vale. Never one to pursue a certain occupation, the most amiable of the triplets had not lost his affability in growth, nor his quiet, unyielding worship of their elder sibling. Like their brother, he was an elf of simple strength, but far less ambition. He cared not for Guild life, preferring to engage in whatever physical chore Tathren had planned for them, as the golden elf was also terribly fond of Brithor and had discovered in him an able partner. Whether hauling trees from the shore, aiding in the construction of even more talans for the expanding populace, or grooming at the stables with Cuthalion, they had kept easy company together; chatting and jesting, uncomplicated. By night, however, Brithor’s warm and generous ways had turned perilously flirtatious, the fairer sex often caught in his roving crosshairs. Whenever the family had attended a feast, celebration, or social event, the maids of the valley had flocked to him like gulls to seed; he had been easily lost to their fluttery attentions. Only Ciryon and Rohrith knew that he had seconded another of Tathren’s groundbreaking traditions, having been bedded by a shrewd ellyth long before his majority rites. This had unleashed a hunger within him both his brothers came to fear in themselves, once they were truly awakened by the love-act. As a result, his twins had struggled to restrict in his carnal jaunts about the far meadows, through mischievous activity and simple reasoning, but Brithor had never been less than utterly respectful even in his erotic adventures, frequenting the same maid for an extended time and only choosing another partner when she, sensing his lack of prolonged commitment, inevitably quit his company. These breaks had done little, however, to daunt his self-confidence or to restrain him from seeking another out; he was, as one of Rohrith’s most intuitive followers had quite keenly noted, an elf made for lovemaking, in all and any of its ambiguous forms. Brithor was, nevertheless, a brother beyond compare, knowing implicitly how to love all those around him, however platonically or fraternally. 

On this particular evening, the House of the Fountain, also known as the Music Guild, was hosting their annual concert for local artists, at which their family choir would in but moments perform. Since their infant years, Nenuial, blessed with a near genial talent herself, had tamed her rambunctious elflings by teaching them to sing. The triplets had an admirable vocal range and their eloquent harmonies were altogether rapturous, but Tinuviel, as befitting her name, was the true songbird among them. Her haunting, dramatic voice had felled even the stoniest hearts in Telperion; her mother held no doubt that the emotive Gondolen crowds would be sobbing in tribute by night’s end. 

Indeed, their reputation, as well as the fame of their heritage, had amassed them quite an audience, which Rohrith and Brithor were surreptitiously surveying from their makeshift slit in the curtain. Ciryon, for his part, was pretending the courtyard was empty; once onstage, and between his identical brothers, he would properly acclimate to their expectant eyes, but the wait was scoring out his innards by the second. They had never performed to such a voluminous crowd before, nor had they ever sung the intricate melodies they practiced in the sanctity of their mother’s house for ought but their grandparents and their extended family. Their only public displays had been the occasional folksong at festivals in the vale; in the accomplishment of the task before him he felt like a hobbit seeking the seat of Gondor. His brothers, however, were typically rabid with excitement, avidly whispering their recognition of various audience members to him. Tinuviel, having her hair tended to by their Nana, was far more demure, humming the more challenging notes beneath her breath. 

“Ciri, come and see!” Rohrith admonished him, before poking his nose out anew. “*Everyone* is here for us: Ada-Dan and Ada-Fin, Cuthalion and Miriel, grandsire and grandmother with Lalaith, Erestor and Haldir with Orinath –“

“For certes, he is here,” Tinuviel repliqued, eager to quash her brother’s needless enthusiasm. “He swore to me he would come. Name some unexpected friends.” 

“Rumil and Anamir with their daughters,” Rohrith underlined, to upbraid her. 

“Who have grown rather impossibly fair,” Brithor commented, to a communal groan from his twins. 

Before they could continue their appraisal, Nenuial plucked them back from between the curtains and snapped its folds shut. 

“Think not, dears, on their approval,” she warmly advised them. “But on your performance’s worthiness.” They followed her pointed eyes to Ciryon by the pillar, took their pregnant meaning in stride. 

Compliantly, they tucked under their by now shaking brother’s arms, more than content to soothe him into a brittle front of courage. Ciryon welcomed their attentions by cinching them even closer to him, loosing his inhibitions on the steady stream that flowed through the bond of twinship between them. He was heartened before long, knowing that even the most hostile embarrassment could not infiltrate the fortress brothers at his flanks. 

“Be consoled by a gift from the Lady herself, Ciri,” Brithor hushly informed him. “Ivrin is here, as well.” 

Though it seemed even his twins could not protect him from the assault of his own riotous emotions at this gutting announcement. 

“I-Ivrin?” he stuttered, suddenly gone spectral white. “But is he not… at sea?”

“Aye, he was, but landed in Telperion some while today,” Rohrith seconded. “Twas his ship, of course, that Rumil commissioned for the journey south. By happy coincidence, Ada-Las met with them at the docks and, knowing how we missed our cherished gwador, urged the captain to stay on for a two-month, to after spirit us all home.” 

“We must show him a time, gwenin, here in our adopted land,” Brithor insisted, though needed not truly encourage either of them. “As he took us bashing through the forest wilds in youthful years, so shall we now storm him through this valley made for the best form of mischief.” 

“Indeed, Ivrin will prove a most willing accomplice, if I know him of old,” Rohrith added, wondering at Ciryon’s continued quiet. His bashful brother nodded rather wanly at this once favorable proposition, sinking back into himself. He threw a doting arm around Ciryon’s hunched shoulders and squeezed some cheer into him. “With our gwador about, there’s no telling what we might get this sober one up to, Thor!” 

Brithor, ever more attuned to Ciryon’s darker moods, consciously shifted the tone of their talk to accommodate his reticence. 

“How long has Ivrin been away, Ciri?” he carefully asked him. “Surely it must be some great years since we’ve last seen him?” 

“Nay, tis but two since his ship has landed in Telperion,” Ciryon murmured in response. “Though that last stay was but a fortnight.” /Two of the most revolutionary and heart-rending weeks of my elflinghood,/ he thought inwardly, but kept his tongue. “The sailing trade is a harsh mistress.” 

Brithor smirked roguishly at the feeling quavering beneath those spare, unassuming words, gleaning onto their ulterior meaning despite his brother’s efforts at concealment. Suddenly, the two-month appeared rightly glutted with potential. He winked stealthily at Rohrith, whose brow furrowed at this strange gesture, and clapped Ciryon quite sharply on the back, to rouse him from misery. 

“Then we, as his sworn brothers, must restore him!” he pledged, with a wolf-toothed grin. “But first… we should rather impress him.”

“Some tuning, then?” Ciryon humbly proposed, eager to distract his brothers from his mounting distress. 

As they muttered half-voiced harmonies between them, Ciryon struggled to shut out, as Ada-Hir ever advised, the scathing inner voices that assailed him; voices that decried his affections as futile from one so opposite to him in character. As they filed off towards the stage, he bemoaned to himself that these last weeks in Gondolen - a couple of years that had seen him free of so many fears - would end with restraint, with self-repression. As the Guildmaster announced them so eloquently, he blunted all other cares from his mind, waiting for the first strum of the lyre to overtake him. 

The note was struck, and he forgot himself awhile. 

* * * 

/Lithe as a petal sailing downstream./ 

The House of the Golden Flower buzzed with vivacious revelers, hummingbirds and honeybees all, who fluttered about the drapery-swathed halls tippling flutes of marigold wine. As besotted by the concert’s ethereal melodies as by the choir’s unearthly beauty, their enraptured audience had followed them to the after-feast, a private affair gone frivolously public through emphatic acclaim. To traverse the main hall was to court fleet-hearted mischief, as swirling dancers snatched up even a trolling observer, minstrels kept the music lively, and spirit-ruddied miscreants pollinated the wine trough. 

Thankfully, the labyrinth of flowing curtains, intricate quilts, and tight-woven tapestries had aided the triplets’ hasty retreat from their leagues of new, preying admirers, to the high-walled back terrace and the enclosed gardens below. A band of trusted guards stood attentively by the grated gate, allowing entrance only to friends and familiars. The enchanted atmosphere of the gardens was the perfect remedy for the primitive stares, frothing mouths, and lecherous gropes of those spelled by the trio’s purring voices and wolfine charms. Beneath trellises of spiraling ivy, languidly drooping willows, and the moist marshes around the moonlit pond, the three brothers were free to frolic with their loyals, while on the balcony above their elders kept hawk-eyed vigil on their adolescent antics. They had been, however, absurdly tame even for them; indeed, it was Tinuviel who had stolen away with Orinath, to twist and twirl in the main hall. 

In a humid, mossy hollow beneath the fieldstone bridge, Ciryon wished he could remember the performance that had so ensorcelled the Gondolen masses. Once his lush voice had melded with his twins’ melancholy tones for that first poignant ballad, he’d given himself entirely to melody, had been wholly lost to pure, resonant harmony. He who lived on facts, on theories, surrendered himself in song, such that he could not rightly recall any sensation other than soaring. When their bountiful applause had roused him, his trance had drifted slowly off, like fog rolling down the mountainside. His proud, giddy brothers had dragged him about through their hug-happy relatives, only Ada-Hir’s familiar succor had truly bled into his dream-state. 

He yet felt blanketed by memory’s heady fugue, but for an altogether dissonant cause. 

He’d been unable to fully engage with their furious arrival at the guildhall, still dazed and distant, but their break onto the terrace had penetrated some. The balmy air had flattered him into the present, as did the swell of ripe pomegranate on his tongue. He had realized - as had Echoriath, who had shoved the plate of fruits and sweets before him - that he was ravenous; his skin prickling not just from his conscious seeping back into current time, but with the first licks of exhaustion. Ushered to a corner table by a beaming Legolas, he had gratefully devoured the offered delicacies, relishing the luscious texture of each fruit, the sugary grain of the cakes, and the pungency of the buttery cheese. He’d downed an entire carafe of water to quench himself, then had finally felt awake enough to greet their familiars. 

After some easy moments with his grandparents, uncles, and family friends, he’d strolled down to the gardens, his head still so buoyant that he had completely forgotten his earlier distress. As he had scoured around for his brothers, the midnight gardens had cast their own, mysterious spell, their shadowy walks and their shroud thatches enrobing him in a veil of complacence. Brithor he had found in a flowerbed of giggling maids, himself patiently waiting out the revelation of their intentions. Ciryon’s need for stout-hearted company had been better suited to the gathering on the pond banks, where Rohrith and his loyals lazed about, sipping mead and telling tales. 

With a hesitant smile, he had slipped in beside his brother, who to his dismay had interrupted a poe-faced elf to introduce him. Only once he’d nodded affably to the makeshift circle - though he had long been acquainted with most - and their attentions had turned back to the pixie philosopher, had he been stung by the piercing stare of all-too-familiar emerald eyes. Though his pulse had pumped out a quavering tattoo and his blood had streaked like lightening through his veins, he had not been able to keep from meeting cute with that bejeweled gaze, nor blinking a bashful greeting to his longtime friend. 

With a rope-raw hand over his heart, Ivrin had subtly bowed in acknowledgement, then resumed his attendance of the impish raconteur to his right. 

Ciryon, meanwhile, had felt deliriously faint at just that trace moment of regard. He had found he could not keep from gawking at the handsome Dorian elf, his vulnerable adolescent body all too affected by Ivrin’s virile presence. His comeliness had certainly not dimmed in his years away; his supple frame corded with hoist-hardened muscle, his skin seasoned bronze by salt and spray, his mahogany hair burnished by elemental exposure. Ciryon’s desire had bubbled impetuously up, a brash, raucous surge that he was perilously ill-equipped to dam even in cases of mild attraction, the rush wilded even further by the flow of feeling from his tender heart. When those excoriating eyes, somehow intuiting his deep embarrassment, had again been foist upon him, he had had no choice but to effect an awkward, but thankfully swift, escape down to his current hideaway. 

Yet his desire, as well as the scepter-steel evidence still encased beneath the loose slope of his robes, would not be so easily concealed during their next encounter. 

Indeed, Ivrin had once been the very cause of his tumultuous introduction to fevered, irrational adolescence. For the past few years, Ciryon had been the very definition of an elfling on the cusp, his uncontrollable yearning for physical stimulation and his all-too-facile incitement to arousal a constant source of shame for one so proud of his poise, of his inquisitiveness and of his rationality. He battled nightly with intrusive dreams so molten he would wake in a swamp of sweat and stickiness, his purple sword ever at the ready. He rued his feeble hold on composure, how a myriad of sensations could spring him in any circumstance; the pop of a grape in his mouth, the gush of the cascade across his back, the most platonic of smiles from a elf crossing his path. Though both their fathers and their brother had forewarned them, in their fortieth year, that the coming decade would bring such challenges, such bodily revolt, Ciryon had nevertheless not weathered these episodes well, uncomfortable as he was in flirtatious situations and embroiled as he was in the worship of one, mercifully absent elf. 

He recalled all too vividly the occasion of his first burgeoning into physical maturity; how could he not, for it was one of the most revered moments of his minority, routinely revisited and hotly improved by his fork-tongued unconscious, which he was convinced unforgivingly sought his ruin through viscous nocturnal eruption. It had been a cool spring afternoon, not four years ago, when he and Ivrin had been embroiled in a lively conversation by the library hearth. Though hardly a scholar, Ivrin was fascinated equally by literature and by maritime lore, which he often sought out during the triplets’ tutoring sessions, as he had been their great friend since infancy. Ivrin had often ended up joining these sessions, Erestor quite eager to infuse his husband’s gamely nephew with some vital book learning. While his friendship with Rohrith and Brithor had been forged on the training greens, Ciryon’s befriending had been effected through their mutual passion for all things tall and tale, no book of poetry nor expansive novel too dense for their undertaking. They had often lingered, after lessons, delving through the musty stacks until they found that perfect, obscure volume to share on a rainy afternoon, tucked into Erestor’s massive armchair. From their first age of education, at fifteen, to their last at forty-three, he and Ivrin had enjoyed these stolen moments together; their friendship fuelled by literary kindling. 

On that final day of togetherness, Ivrin had been looking forward to his departure the following morn, for employment on a merchant vessel. Ciryon had been aching with the knowledge of his close friend’s leave-taking, but could not confess this to him, as Ivrin was too obviously thrilled by the prospect of adventure. He had longed to be a shipwright for countless years; he hoped that, after immersing himself for a time in seafaring culture, he might find a master builder to apprentice himself to. Ivrin had been brimming such with anticipation that they had cast their dusty tome aside and segued quite effortlessly into singular conversation, Ciryon attentive to his friend as he had never been before. He had been, in some ways, like an open wound, seeping over with feeling for his departing companion, nearly festering with repressed emotion. 

Only when Ivrin had described the sterling ship of his imaginary designs had he been singed through with a terrible need. 

/‘Lithe as a petal sailing downstream, the hull would sweep across the still waters like a caress, the ephemeral ship floating over the ocean as the Foam Flower sails the midnight sky.’/ 

The desperate want that had coursed through him at that lofty utterance had been nothing like blithe, nothing like the immaculate silmaril above, but altogether like an unsmitable blaze. Ivrin, in the gauzy glow emanating from the fire, had been so luxuriously rendered as to unabashedly entrance him; in retrospect, his budding body had no choice but to react. His heart, however, could have dulcetly given way to rapacious desire, but to his utter astonishment - then and now - it had instead clamored up a cacophony of protest to Ivrin’s incipient departure, seizing him with fervor and shaking him such that he had to swallow back a soul-stricken howl. This swarm of feeling had distracted him long enough from the quite visceral evidencing of his newfound attraction, that he had been thoroughly shocked to sense the existence of a log-fat erection – his first ever – jutting up from his braying loins. 

He had known very well what the bedeviled trouble was; but as his sudden affliction was unprecedented, he could do little but fumble an excuse and scurry home to the sanctity of his bedchamber. Flustered, frazzled, and entirely overwhelmed by this unfathomable occurrence, he had not known, despite his parents’ gentle teachings, what in Aman to do about this intrusive display, nor how to banish it from him. Fretting, he had drawn himself a bath, hoping the silky waters would ease the swelling some – needless to add his emulsion had an entirely opposite effect. Thinking him sick, Ivrin had called that evening to check on his fever; thankfully the episode had not repeated itself and, the matter quickly settled, his brothers had joined them for a turn in the woods. 

He had longed for no other in the four years since, though had been able to conceal his rapid-fire affections, as well as his dew-eyed appreciation of the seafarer’s many qualities of character, on the few occasions they had had together. 

Ciryon kept this love to himself, for himself alone; Ivrin belonged to the sea. 

Since their advent in shining Gondolen, his desires had extrapolated some. Only a stone would not be moved by the decadent creatures that sauntered about the valley, and he was in the prime of adolescence. Though he still dreamed of none but Ivrin, he would be false if he did not concede that others had caught his eye and that he had, in solitary moments, found some pleasure in thinking of them. Indeed, he took some relief in these fleeting attractions, as they were a sign of future hope for him, though none would hold his notice long enough to truly capture his heart. Ivrin’s eyes, and no other’s, spilt his scalding seed, so relentlessly, so voluminously, that Ciryon often thought he’d never truly be sated. 

He had made a strained peace with these sudden, wanting inflammations, a trial of maturation he had no choice but to bear through. He certainly could not bring himself to behave as Brithor did, nor did he wish to embrace the studious avoidance of bodily need Rohrith practiced. Instead, he had sought blushing counsel from the likeliest source, Echoriath, who had given him tricks to temper himself during festive occasions, to focus himself in more sober times of instruction, and to create himself a sanctuary in which to encourage sensual self-exploration. These had indeed helped him greatly, perhaps it was again time to borrow Echo’s ear for awhile; his current, glaring predicament would be only too familiar to his bond-brother. 

The problem of how to pass time with Ivrin while still maintaining his composure had reared itself soon after his retreat to the bridge hollow, the solution yet impalpable. The chance to reawaken their long dormant friendship was too precious to be missed, though Ciryon wondered if he was merely constructing rather elaborate designs for his own eventual, emotional collapse. Ivrin had been born in Laurelin. He spoke reverently of Lorien of old, as if he had himself inhabited the stately forest and safeguarded its borders against the Shadow. Ciryon had always held that the Dorian elf’s secret dream was to build a fleet, one fit for the royals he worshipped as his own master and mistress. Galadriel and Celeborn were as beloved to Ivrin as his own grandparents; he wanted nothing more than to gift them a ship beyond compare, a vessel of his own resplendent creation. This goal, however glorious, would not be achieved in Telperion, whose measly riverside port was fit only for small supply boats and slender passenger ships. No romance could be undertake with one partner so oft abroad, and Ciryon was not yet elf enough to believe he could live away from his family’s support. 

The gods may very well be against them, if not Ivrin’s own desires, which Ciryon muddled over daily. All this internal debate, however, was useless before his majority’s turn, though the Valar themselves only knew when he would see Ivrin again, after this accidental holiday. Perhaps in years to come, he could create an occasion, he could undertake a quest… but even he thought this unlikely at best, laughable at worst. 

He was made for pining, not wooing. 

With a whining bleat of defeat, he sank back against the fieldstone arch of the bridge. His skin still fuming from his scarlet sail through memory, he wrinkled up the bottom edge of his robes above his knees and dipped his bared legs in the blessedly cool pond. He forced his clenched muscles to lax, his shoulders to stretch, his breaths to lengthen, and his own rigid length softened accordingly. The night was kissed by a scintillating star, why should he not bask in its spectral serenity, instead of worrying himself red and chafing? The imagery his woozy mind conjured amused him such, that he choked off a chuckle with his palm. 

“Though you have ever found more merriment in solitude,” Ivrin announced himself, from behind. “I pray, gwador, that you might abide a slight intrusion, as I have longed since the very moment of my arrival to take some ease in your esteemed company.” Without waiting for compliance, he plunked himself down at his side and beamed at him so brightly that Ciryon thought he might shed tears. “How do you fare, mellon-nin?” 

“I… I am… well enough,” Ciryon managed to stumble out. He took shelter in the obvious, while acclimating himself to Ivrin’s bold presence and smoldering scent. Indeed, everything about the Dorian elf was enticing, but most especially the gentle, kindly look upon his face. “I must confess… I… I have missed you greatly, meldir.”

Ivrin’s sultry features veritably glowed at this pronouncement, such that Ciryon thought he might seize him up and squeeze the very fea out of him. 

“And might you welcome such a friend’s embrace?” Ivrin asked him; mirthful, but earnest in intent. “Verily, Ciryon, tis as if we never afore knew each other.” 

“Forgive me,” Ciryon replied, amidst a rash of blushing. “I am… still growing into my skin.” 

He allowed Ivrin to envelop him, fighting to suppress the shiver that snaked through him.

“Are you very tender, then?” Ivrin inquired, his breath ghosting over his ear. 

“Aye,” Ciryon murmured, too brittle to fully respond.

“Then I swear to go gently with you,” came the playful yet knowing reply, at which Ciryon’s rash became an outright flush.

The hug, however, was studiously chaste. He suffered it with aplomb, somehow, despite his inhibitions, wishing that more was attempted, or at least alluded to. They eventually settled into a companionable hold; Ivrin wedged himself against the wall so that he might look Ciryon in the face. 

“You have indeed grown remarkably,” he noted, without a hint of undue appreciation. “They valley itself seems enamored of you and your mirror-brothers.” 

“Aye, they are an insurgent lot,” Ciryon snarked, unimpressed though only too cognizant of the veracity of his observation. “Cuthalion has already come to blows with one unsavory letch from Tiron, to say nothing of Tathren’s habitual fits of temper. We would strike out ourselves, if provoked, but it would only encourage them.” 

“Brithor seems to need no encouragement,” Ivrin remarked, with a gamely grin. “I take it he is an elf already?” Ciryon laughed sharply in rueful acknowledgement, happy to have so easily fallen into their usual banter. He had indeed missed his friend, and related this by an affectionate squeeze to his outstretched arm. “And you, gwador? Have you sampled the local delicacies and taken resounding leave of your minority?” 

Ciryon rolled his eyes, but smiled still. 

“Nay, I am well settled to elflinghood for my few remaining years,” he revealed. “Though I have yet to convince my body of my continued innocence.”

“It would have you a wanton?” Ivrin teased, clapping a supportive arm over his shoulders. “Fear not, mellon… the fever will not quit you, even in after-years!” 

“By the Valar, Ivrin!!” Ciryon groaned, but was heartened some by his care. If only the months ahead could pass exactly as this, he would be content for another decade of absence. 

“Alas, I have not stolen away from the pack merely for sport,” Ivrin told him, rather soberly. “I came, in fact, to berate you, meldir, for your lack of promised correspondence. I received not even an ounce of gratitude for the volume I sent you.” 

“Which volume?” Ciryon started, surprised by this turn of conversation. “I’ve had no word of you since your last stop in the vale.” 

“No word at all?” Ivrin queried rhetorically, a frown darkening his face. “Did my Adar not deliver a book of ancient sea chanteys to you? I sent one along with him, from Vinyamar…” With his aggravation plain, it was Ciryon’s turn to weave a consoling arm around his sleek waist. “Verily, he is like an istar in his practiced forgetfulness!” 

“I’m sure he meant no harm in it,” Ciryon soothed. “Though regardless, you do indeed have my gratitude. I would have writ, if I… if I had had knowledge of where to send the message.” 

By this time, Ciryon had to fight mightily against the urge to kiss away his consternation, all too aware of his softening feelings. Ivrin had attempted to correspond with him, to reach him from afar… and by the burn of his cheeks, he was quite angered by failure. In his haze of desire, Ciryon had somehow forgot their closeness, the complicity they shared in younger years. He had, it seemed, almost entirely ignored the intimate friendship that had ignited his passion’s fire; a foolish, but amendable, mistake. 

“Indeed, that was my purpose in writing,” Ivrin mused, though knew his fury was futile. Instead, he turned his mind towards his true intent in seeking Ciryon out. “I am sorry you believed me so thoughtless as to abandon you outright, gwador. You must allow me to make the time up to you in the coming months.” 

“I would be most glad of it,” Ciryon resolved. “Indeed, when we spied you from behind the stage, Rohrith and Brithor were already plotting out prospective adventures…” 

“And I will be thrilled to be their acolyte in such glorious mischief,” Ivrin agreed, with a caveat. “But I did not have them particularly in mind, though of course I adore them as brothers. Nay… tis *you*, mellon-nin, that I wish to shadow during my time here. I have missed our closeness, at sea, our particular affinity. I like my ship-friends well enough, but they lack a certain… grace. A graciousness and intellect vital to my existence. I have been too long away from such influence. I need to revel in it, to replenish myself. Might you be agreeable to… to aiding me in such an endeavor?” 

“You wish to shadow me?” Ciryon repeated dumbly, disbelieving that his ears had heard true. 

“I would not be glued to your side for the day long,” Ivrin elaborated. “I am not so bold, nor so foolish as to suffocate you thus. I know well of your need for solitude. I merely suggest that we might plan a daily activity, intellectual or otherwise, so that we might… reap the amplest yield of our time together here.” 

Ciryon took a moment to chew on his words, ruminating on the various meanings implicit in the phrases he selected and properly digesting their supposed effect on his rather precarious hold on his body’s urgings. Mostly, he struggled to grit back the roar of delight, the quite vocal ejaculation that spurred from his very core, this chance to spend every coming day in Ivrin’s most cherished company. 

In the end, he demurred rather winningly. 

“I would be most amenable to establishing such a routine, meldiren,” he smirked, with feigned haughtiness. 

“Verily?” Ivrin smiled as well, as if he had doubted that his proposal would be happily met. With such infectious beatitude Ciryon was reminded of the kiss he’d earlier sought. 

“Aye,” Ciryon whispered, unsure of how to show his fondness without being overtly covetous of his affections. “But before we strike our accord, you must swear to… to devise some form of correspondence for the absence that is indeed coming soon. And you must swear to write, else Valar knows what might become of… of us.” 

“By Elbereth, I swear it will be so,” Ivrin proclaimed earnestly, clasping his hand so forcefully Ciryon thought he may have cracked a bone. “But know that no absence can abuse nor sunder my care, Ciryon. Ever have you been the brother of my very heart, gwador-nin.” 

Ciryon was so touched by his sincerity, he could almost forget the dire chastity of the sentiment. 

Brothers they would be, then.

* * * 

As he crept into the dank hold, the wick of his lone candle cracked and huffed, the dust-thick air nearly snuffing out the lone light guiding him forth. He’d thread a single, slender finger through the curl of its brass base, the rim of which dug into his sea roughened skin and braised a red arc into the swell of his index, such was the weight of the wax. The broad oak planks of the ceiling muffled the heel knocks, boot stamps, and looping whistles of the dancers above deck, but the crash and flood of the ocean breaking across the hull was lulling to him. 

Carefully balancing both the sparking candle and his scraggly book of verse, Ciryon ghosted through the stagnant air, casting a fearsome, wraith-like shadow behind. He glided with spectral grace over to the store of furniture his fathers were shipping back to the vale, a luxuriously cushioned divan the pile’s master-crafted centerpiece, forced in by the ornate writing desk he himself had been gifted by the chief historian of Gondolen’s great library. The other pieces were arrayed such that one need only settle one’s wares on the desk, hop deftly over the armrest, and sink into a cradle of downy satin pillows for an evening’s decadent recline. 

This was not the first night of their three week journey home that Ciryon had sought out the solitary comfort of this sanctuary, though, as but three days remained them before porting, it may well be the last. He doubted either his brothers or Ivrin would allow him to abstain from the revelry that currently raged above, nor could he bring himself to, as these would be his final moments with his dear, rediscovered friend for several years. Yet on this night of riotous carousing he required some ponderous reflection, a shyly respite, the chance to grasp, however ephemerally, at some peace of mind. 

He’d known little in these last, whirlwind weeks with Ivrin, of complicity, of camaraderie, and of startling epiphany. 

In truth, he’d never known such a blissful time. If he’d sampled Gondolen’s delights before Ivrin’s arrival, with his friend and heart’s brother by his side he’d veritably gorged on them. Ciryon, in his innocence, had never even considered how so many of the devout lovers in his acquaintance were also such giving friends to one another, how such playful companionship only served as kindling to the heat of their passion. Though he’d kept his libido under well enough control when in Ivrin’s beckoning presence, he could not damped the effulgence of his soul’s yearning flame when so effortlessly heartened by his company. Twas maddening to him, what a sterling match they made, their characters the perfect compliment, their tastes diverse yet flattering, their tempers both even and their manners both mindful of others. Though Ciryon craved solitude, when he was with Ivrin he felt no such compunction; they could easily spend hours in the same study, in complete silence, and never feel burdened by the other’s presence. Yet their discussions, once begun, were of epic scope, as well as wholly engrossing. Indeed, only a select few could effectively pry them apart, even comments from the most esteemed specialists only sparred them on to further debate. Ciryon was sage enough to realize how Ivrin’s attentiveness improved him; he was more likely to voice his opinion, more amiable in mood, more jovial altogether, and more welcoming to those outside his circle of familiars. 

In short, love became him; for he was, after coming to know Ivrin so intimately over these last months, tragically and quite irrevocably enamored of him. 

Yet Ivrin had not the slightest inkling of his care, nor viewed him as other than the hardiest of friends. The clarity of this truth had overwhelmed him on several occasions, most notably during one of their more roguish and outright disobedient ruses, involving, as these mischiefs ever did, his sprightly twins. Indeed, they had themselves plotted the tarnishing deception, as if such a notion was ever in doubt. Rohrith had rallied his youngling loyals to the cause and Brithor had provided a few sporting maids; the presence of which had, in the end, only prolonged their sentence. 

With the founding couple of Tathren and Echoriath currently residing in the valley, its people had pushed for a new council election, as the inhabitants valued their opinion above all others and the candidate they chose to support would be a beneficial one to their colony. The votes would be cast before the noon hour, the afternoon would be spent tallying. Most of their family had promised to aid in this lengthy and monotonous task, which left the triplets to their own conniving devices; as well as the reputed bathing shelf in the mountains completely barren, as all elves of age, residents or no, would not take leave of the town that vital day. With their elders suitably distracted, they and the underage, nominal elflings in their acquaintance were free to sneak up to said bathing shelf - from whose sultry climes elves in minority were banned - which the triplets and their accomplices did. To their credit, all were too entrenched in the mire of adolescence to go completely bare, most wore discreet bathing trunks or bound their breasts with cheese cloth, though the flirtations were rife and giddily unbound, as were the public frolics in chaste affections. 

Ciryon himself had been quite enthralled by leisure; the rush of the cascade bracing, the balmy sun a languorous treat, the sandstone bed of the shelf soft and welcoming. Prone across the singeing rocks, he and Ivrin had followed a meandering train of thought to its illogical and quite woozy conclusion, mostly ignoring the coquettish maids and the brawny males skipping about. Twas then that Ivrin informed him that one of Rohrith’s swordbrothers had asked after Ciryon’s availability, assuming that one who frequented him so would know well of his circumstances. With cautious eyes, Ciryon had examined Ivrin’s sun-drenched face for even a trace of jealousy, but to his dismay found none. Indeed, Ivrin had rather emphatically urged him to give the likely suitor a chance and soon after slyly offered to arrange a spare gathering to better acquaint them. 

Thorn-pricked by the rather naked evidence of Ivrin’s platonic concern, he had replied too sharply, scraping his back against the raw stone as he wrenched himself onto his opposing side. He’d felt the beads of burgeoning blood burn his scratches; Ivrin’s eyes, dark as a forest pine, needling him for an explanation as to his brash behavior. While scarlet trickled over his spine, he’d inwardly cursed himself, the rancor of his words speaking more than their extracted meaning. Before he could muster a comment infused with equal parts bemusement, self-beratement, and warning against similar suggestions, Ivrin had moved so close behind him as to tempt his ever-ready arousal. Worse, yet wonderfully, his friend had soothed his broiling head with gentle, easing strokes, trailing his fingers back through Ciryon’s velvety sheathes of hair. He had whispered a confessor’s assurances to him; that he knew Ciryon was yet tender, that he wanted the security of majority before embarking on a romance, that his experiences in Gondolen had affected him deeply and that he had not yet reconciled his glaring transformation with his regular self. After Ivrin had sworn not to pressure him again, he had added that he would himself help the covetous elf to understand this was but an expected reply, though Ciryon had no reason to fear him or to shy around him, as he was also green. 

In time, he had slipped away to drench a cloth, once fetched he had cleansed his wounds. Despite his rather acute despondency, Ivrin’s wry humor eventually drew him out again and his mood was quite merry thereafter. Excepting upon their return home, where Elrohir and Legolas awaited them, manfully attempting to scowl through their amusement. One of the more bashful maids had confessed to her Naneth of the entire affair. Words had spread swiftly on such an anxious day, so their Adar had no choice but to publicly chastise them. Over the course of their years in the valley, Ciryon and his brothers had accomplished many unprecedented feats of daring and guile, but none was so wretched as their five night stint as fishmongers in the culinary guild. An unexpected luxury had come, however, in the form of Ivrin’s nightly tending of his over-seasoned hands, soaking them in an aloedil wash and binding them in palm leaves for an hour before bed. He had sat with him, in those late hours, reading from the book of verse Ciryon now absently flipped through, intoning in his smoky voice ballads of witchery and woe. 

Ciryon had not had a proper sleep since, his flint-ready mind forever conjuring up those precious, near sacred moments with Ivrin. 

As he trenched himself into a lofty corner, Ciryon analyzed every one of their rabid adventures for some hope, some sign of how he could bear through his impending absence. These escapades, whether intellectual, nautical, or frivolous, would be the foundation of his mature character, the fertile soil in which his unfathomable adulthood would be rooted. Ivrin had become essential to him; even unrequited, his affection molded the matter that made him, fashioning an elf of kindness, of spirit, and of honor. More than many of his generation, he now understood love’s element, its tenor and its shades, its fury and its desolation. 

The rub was that he would essay the practicality of this understanding on no other than his bosom friend, whose own heart was an enigma as puzzling and as daunting as any in their people’s history. 

Ciryon, bereft of a further strain of hypothetical reasoning, instead shifted the candle to cast over his book and bunked down into his cozy nook, questing for insight, for enlightenment in lyricism, metaphor, and the poetics of ancient artisans. He became so engrossed in the exquisite compositions that he did not mark the recurrent creak of the floor planks, nor the flicker of a dim-flamed lantern about the musty hold. Indeed, he did not start, with an unsightly oath, until the intruder had set the lantern down, vaulted over the far arm of the divan, and landed, with a swoop, but a sliver-space from the knees over which his tome was spread. 

Wicked-eyed, Ivrin grinned with palpable satisfaction and no little mirth, as Ciryon fought to calm his uproarious pulse. 

“Fiend!” he snarled, but could not keep himself from smiling. He wished he had more than the fragile book to launch at him, though a quick heel-butt to the shoulder did wonders for vengeance. 

“Tis I who should name you thusly,” Ivrin retorted pointedly. “For abandoning me to the rather lecherous attentions of the captain of your uncle’s guard, who has imbibed far too much rye-seed liquor for steady thought and whose gropes rival an octopi for efficacy!” When Ciryon giggled at this rather pathetic image, Ivrin became frightfully sober. “Verily, gwador, your solitary ways are sweet enough, but at times… tis the eve afore the penultimate night of our togetherness and I am injured that you would rather spend time alone. I had thought… I will leave, if you wish.” 

A strange mood indeed had shroud his friend. Ciryon had wondered how Ivrin would treat their leave-taking, though had assumed he would confront the circumstance with his usual wit and aplomb. His words, however, were the most uncertain he had ever uttered to him; indeed his entire manner seemed pained, his natural aura of gold gameliness muted, vulnerable. Ciryon desperately wanted to catch up his hand and press it to his heart, but knew such a forceful gesture might frighten him away. Instead, he shifted into a more welcoming posture, removing the barrier of his bent-up legs and beckoning Ivrin to approach, if he would. 

“Nay, you must stay, meldir,” Ciryon warmly insisted. “I only sought some quiet, never to offend. Indeed, I thought you would follow me, if you wearied of the revels. You know me well enough. Forgive me for not hiding away in my chamber, but there was no peace to be had! Tis folly bunking with half-grown brothers! Brithor is entertaining some salty ellyth on his berth, Rohrith would soon invade, on the opposite side of my thin wall Cuthalion and Miriel were… demonstrating their love with aggressive physicality, while Tathren and Echo were similarly occupied across the way... I fear I will have to sleep in the hold, once my fathers and uncles join the fray.” 

Ivrin chuckled softly at the painting of this vivid sonic palette, but the sentiment did not reach his eyes. 

“Then you are most emphatically forgiven,” he murmured, turning pensive. “In the throes of adolescence, such close quarters must be a trial.” When Ciryon flushed in response, he knew better than to press the matter further. He seemed not to have heart enough even for jesting. “I see you’ve taken up the Aerandir anew.”

“Whose other works are so suited to sea travel than those of the wanderer?” Ciryon noted, taking refuge, as Ivrin had guided him to, in the poetic. “Erestor tells me his father was first gifted his own volume by the poet himself. I shall have to ask him, if ever I am blessed with his acquaintance, what manner of elf he was. Perhaps he might even recount some intriguing tales of their conversations. He shelves it now, in our library, so you may… you may keep this one.” 

Carefully veiled eyes met his, the gray-green of dulcet willow leaves; Ivrin’s face nearly expressionless. Ciryon was by now thoroughly unnerved by his friend’s bizarre reservation, the ire that seemed to ripple under the surface of his most casual actions. He began to feel as if no remark was satisfactory, no comment nor anecdote sufficient, but by what scale and to what end he could not say. Steeling himself for an offhand, or perhaps underhanded, strike, Ciryon waited for his answer, for some faint sign of emotion within him. 

“I confess, I have grown rather fond of him,” Ivrin admitted, in a whisper. “Almost desperately so. His words are comfort on a chill night, though remote as the specter of your far-away companion, as the phantom remembrance of a lover in your bed when you suddenly wake.” 

Though such subject matter was leagues beyond his own experience, he could only hope to draw out Ivrin’s now glaringly apparent sadness by confronting this notion head on. 

“Does the sea evoke such visions for you?” Ciryon prodded, with feather-touch gentility. “Have you so recently lost someone dear? You never said before.” 

“Nay, I never said,” Ivrin acknowledged blackly, retreating inward. “I vowed not to, for him, for myself… to others, I vowed. Others who saw clearer than I, but who also have not seen…” Repentantly, he snatched the book up, flipping through the pages as if searching for a port to anchor in. Ciryon began to fear that he would have to fetch Tathren and Echoriath, for he was not yet equipped to deal with such ragged emotions. He had forgotten, as he often did, that Ivrin was but seven years older than he and only a few past his own majority. “Shall I read out a favored passage?” 

“If it would hearten you,” Ciryon encouraged, wanting to hold him as he had so often been held, but afraid the meaning would be mistook. Or, more likely, understood entirely too well. 

“From ‘The Gloaming’,” Ivrin announced softly, clearing his throat. 

“Shadow and mist meet the morn in a swoon,  
embers of the dying night. Too soon,  
the traitor sun will burn this gloaming hour  
bright, will singe the sea from dusk to dour,  
and, like the flower foam that crests   
the waves, will broil the filmy tide to rest. 

In this golden hour before the sun, I muse  
on murk, on effluent emotion. I confuse  
sea with lake, river with ocean. I am made  
of mist and shadow by the moon, but by day  
I long for the obscurity of brume, of blight…

Ivrin halted, as if overcome by the elegiac verse. 

“Finish it,” Ciryon implored, himself lost in the moment’s rapture. 

When emerald eyes of full, fierce incandescence leapt off the page and met with his own, Ciryon almost yelped. Ivrin’s handsome face was no longer impassive, but live with force, with an indecipherable feeling, at once intent and dismantling, of such ominous beauty that Ciryon thought he might weep. The touch that grazed over his cheek was of utmost gentility, but the fist jabbing into the small of his back seethed with power, with suppressed will, as if to spread his very fingers would be to seal their fates. 

“To lose in midnight fugue my lover-light,” Ivrin whispered from memory, then launched at him. 

Even to the last second, he did not possibly think a kiss would come; the fire of it shocked him straight. Plump and luscious lips pressed ardently to his own, his head held firm so there was no chance of missing the mark. Yet they were not too wanting to lick, to tease, to lave open with a sweet tongue and to skirt the inner rim, before suckling. Hot breath poured into his mouth, besotting him further, until he was unrepentantly netted in Ivrin’s steady arms, his own tingling fingers twined in sleek mahogany hair. 

By the time those smoldering lips eased off, Ciryon was as spineless as a jellyfish. 

He gazed up into eyes as vast and deep as the sea, overhung by a furrowed brow, searching for signs of distress, of approval, of anything overly perplexing in his flush face. The brilliance of his own onyx eyes, their keen fascination and their forthright awe of him so entranced Ivrin that he dared not impress his worries upon that eager face, whose wolfish lips twisted into a grin of pure, devouring delight. 

“Am I to take this as your overture?” Ciryon queried with unabashed playfulness, hoping to diffuse the moment and to loose Ivrin’s tongue in an altogether different fashion. 

“Take it as you would,” Ivrin replied, so bedazzled by those obsidian eyes that he could not summon any manner of thought or reason. “I adore you, regardless of my heart’s reception.” 

“Then tis your heart that’s extended,” Ciryon clarified for himself. “And not merely your…?” A flick of an eye finished the question, a surprisingly rosy blush tinted Ivrin’s cheeks. 

“They are both indebted to you,” Ivrin told him. “For you have kept them, though unknowingly, long and well.” 

Ciryon gasped at this, though little should truly shock him after recent, molten events. Feeling bold, he sought to learn more of what he had so recently been taught, brushing hesitant lips over Ivrin’s own, which shivered with pleasure. The sailor maintained a fragile hold over himself, allowing Ciryon to explore his pursed mouth, to test out pressure, texture, sensation. After an extended indulgence and no little suckling of his own, he flicked his tongue out to part them, knowing, however reluctantly, that they must reckon themselves to this newfound emotion between them. 

Ciryon himself emerged from their kiss quite breathless, so unmoored that he could do naught but cling to Ivrin, his mind a fog. 

“Such a mystery,” he mumbled, as Ivrin reclined them along the divan. Their warm bodies fit quite snugly together. Ciryon had never felt so relaxed, so right with another. The heated fusion made him giddy; he chuckled sweetly, randomly, into the slick skin of Ivin’s neck. “I had not marked the faintest glimmer of care in you.” 

“I swore to go gently,” Ivrin remarked. “You were so terribly tender upon our reunion, raw with such adolescent embroilment as I myself had only recently cast off. Verily, Ciryon, you quivered like a leaf in my arms. I knew then… that any love made between us must begin in friendship, as all the lasting loves do.” His face turned solemn, but remained intent. “I had hoped to keep our feeling strong through correspondence, to keep my heart concealed until such a time as I might be a constant presence at your side. My resolve has failed me, this night.” 

“Happily so,” Ciryon smiled, quickly plucking another kiss. 

“In but two turns of the moon,” Ivrin sighed, maudlin. “Twill not be such a happy thing. To part from a friend is troublesome. To part from a lover is heartache.” 

“Ever in my heart was I parting from a lover,” Ciryon revealed, refusing to give credence to any shape of sorrow. “Tis but a shift in the requiting.” 

Ivrin was acutely impressed by this, such that he pressed their brows together, drinking deep of the darkling elf’s intoxicating optimism. 

“Then I find I must swear anew,” Ivrin pledged. “Beyond mere correspondence, towards something palpable. I cannot say how many years such an undertaking might occupy, but I promise to return to our vale as often as I can in the meantime, and barring that, to effect my apprenticeship as swiftly as possible, so that I might… I might ply my trade nearest to my heart and might, in future years, court you proper. But you, dear one, must swear to me in return.” 

“To what should I swear?” Ciryon asked, eager to accomplish anything he might desire. 

“Not to bind yourself to another until… until I have my say,” Ivrin proposed, a shake streaking through him at the black thought. “My chance to win you.” 

“Then I swear to this, and more,” Ciryon underlined, cocooned as he was in Ivrin’s vigilant embrace. “Will you be so very long away?” 

“Nay, not so very long,” Ivrin assured him, doubting the promise even as he spoke it. Still, they could not spend their final days wallowing in despair. Best to lighten them both some. “I would not leave ought to chance. Not when such a comely elf as one of your darkling beauty is loosed upon the vale, seeking his majority.”

“Then have me for your own,” Ciryon urged him, eyes soft and sultry as velveteen. “By my heart, I would gift it upon no other.” 

With a wrenching groan into his neck, Ivrin writhed, once, against him, but fought temptation with the mettle of a Balrog slayer. 

“I am an elf of honor, lirimaer,” he rasped out, every stitch of his strung frame giving the lie to this necessary gallantry. “You are my treasure, Ciryon, tremendously precious to me. My north star. My silmaril. I would not spoil you for all the heavens’ might, not here in your fathers’ care nor under the watchful eye of Elbereth herself.”

His composure ravaged by this declaration, Ciryon bit such a kiss into his lips that Ivrin could feel the pulse of his own heart. 

“By the Lady’s grace, I will wait for you, melethen,” Ciryon boldly vowed. “But I will take my toll in kisses, ere we part.” 

With an impish grin, Ciryon assaulted him anew, enjoying while he could his peerless lover’s care.

 

End of Part One


	5. Ciryon’s Tale, Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a companion piece to Of Elbereth’s Bounty, which takes place between the action of the final chapter (16) and the epilogue, set centuries in the future. Some of the characters from OEB deserved to have their own stories wrapped up outside of the actual narrative of that tale. This particular tale, along with the soon coming Rohrith’s Tale, concern the majority rites of two of Tathren’s triplet brothers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimers: Characters belong to that wily old wizard himself, Tolkien the Wise, the granddad of all 20th century fantasy lit. I serve at the pleasure of his estate and aim not for profit.   
> Author’s Note: While I think parts of this story can be understood on their own, I think it better to read the whole cycle, or at least Of Elbereth’s Bounty, to completely understand the world I’ve created and the character histories. The series is as follows: Part One is ‘In Earendil’s Light’, Part Two is ‘Under the Elen’, and the vastly larger Part Three is ‘Of Elbereth’s Bounty’.   
> Feedback: Would be delightful.   
> Dedication: To Eresse, as always.

Ciryon’s Tale – Part Two

 

Early Autumn, Year 196, Fourth Age

With a knotty smirk hewn on the blood fields of the Gorgoroth, Legolas dove into the prime of the river’s rage. He surged as only such a gifted warrior could against the awesome squall of the rapids; arms spearing into the deeping swell, sinuous frame twisting through the wild stream, muscular legs kicking up a storm of froth in his wake. His focus sharp as a dagger tip, he sliced through the bracing, frigid waters of early fall as his slit knives had once so keenly gutted a legion of snarling orcs, the flinty charge of adrenaline coursing through him like he was made of pure mithril. With the preternatural agility of one of his own lethal strikes, he shot up over a ridge of jagged rock, whipped a glinting arc of spray through the air, then slipped back into the raucous flow with nary a splash. He swam the most treacherous leagues of the river as deftly as he had once scythed through enemy ranks, this late afternoon ritual a vital exertion, a necessary cleansing both of rank body and of impetuous spirit. 

With Elrohir away on a surveying mission down the coast, his overabundant fount of energies was only too eager for even the most uninspired of expenditures. Elbereth be praised for blessing him with such distractions as brothers, mother, and children, else every passing minute would wait on his elf-knight’s return. Already he was tarrying far too late about the forest haunts, ever reluctant to slink back to their empty bed, to seek solitary consolation in the lingering traces of his mate’s ederwood scent upon their pillows. His reason knew very well that Elrohir’s trip was for but a fortnight, that his firsthand observance of their tests to the sandstone shelf was essential to the Council’s approval of Tathren and Echoriath’s future plans, to erect a seaside suburb to central Telperion beside an increasingly crucial lighthouse watch at the mouth of the river. His strident heart, however, still after all their years of binding brooked none but the briefest separation from its darkling mate, to say little of his perspicacious loins, which but for the daily chores of peacetime living and the joy of rearing their rambunctious brood were altogether insufferable when any thought of Elrohir was roused. Only the most entrenched and pointedly ignored recess of his mind had long observed that such absence only precipitated a rather seismic reunion; he took what pleasure he could in the meticulous plotting of this scarlet eve’s playing out. 

His vigor spent and the rapids vanquished, Legolas allowed the river rush to careen him towards the verdant banks. When he wrenched himself from the water’s thirsty suck, the cold of coming twilight braised over his limber, dripping frame; a shiver snarled up his spine. The tall grass lapped at his heels as he ambled over to his abandoned pack and raiment. Though his skin was still prickled by the chill, he waited for the wind to dry him fully before tossing his garments loosely on, as the downy warmth of his woolen bed-robe awaited at home. Such blunt exposure to the elements was, for certes, a fundamental part of the trial’s endurance; a Mirkwood elf’s warrior instincts would never be fully sheathed, even in such an extended time of peace. 

Indeed, as he overtook the home-bound path, an unnerving sense of disquiet pricked into his chest; some manner of trouble beckoned through the ether. Any frantic pulse from Elrohir’s heart would pound, clean and visceral, into his very core. Any threat to Tathren or Tinuviel would likewise pummel him into action, the same for any of his blood kin, even his bloated sire. This distress did not wail, but ghosted about the outskirts of his consciousness, as if too ephemeral to but seep into his sentient mind, which led Legolas to plainly guess at its triad of gamely, precocious sources. 

His triplets had found mischief again. 

Releasing a seasoned sigh, Legolas strode forth with amplified resolve, somewhat alarmed, despite his bemused idea of their latest ruse, that his spirit had heard the call of their distress, however faintly. Such a summons had never been effected before, though he wondered if Elrohir’s distance was the cause. Ever the empowered warrior, he braced himself for shock, for calamity. While the insistent cries of quick-to-tear elflings of early years were hardly the stuff of otherworldly signals, the impassioned beckoning of proud, independence-minded adolescents was another beast entirely. 

One Legolas prayed he possessed skill enough to slay. 

As he pushed through their garden gate and brisked through the shadowy aisle between their willow thickets, he spied two raven-haired figures by the base of their lone mallorn sapling. To mark the tree as a youngling was mildly disingenuous; although yet of tender years at forty-five since its planting, the trunk was already three stories high, its boughs limber and its leaves lush. Its height would stretch up a further five lengths before the splendor of maturity, though, from the modest cabin perched on its eastern side, the view already extended over the bauble-roof of their family home. 

Unlike any other tree in the vale, this one had a guardian, a parent of sorts, who oversaw its growth. The triplets had each been gifted a root of their choice upon one of their earliest begetting days, to plant and to tend into fertile grace. Rohrith had taken on the challenge of a mangrove root, which presently flourished just outside his bedchamber window. Brithor, true to form, had added a willow to the southern thicket in honor of their elder brother, whose mate had been the mastermind behind as well as the benefactor of their potent roots. Ciryon had uncharacteristically chosen a mallorn, which he had nurtured into a sanctuary of his very own, as the cabin above housed his private study. That he had to dislodge the cabin every autumn, then affix it anew every spring to allow for the tree’s growth, mattered little to one of his sage dedication. He alone among their sprightly threesome craved a private space of his own. Something in his character needed to disengage, ever so often, from his relentless association with his brothers, from their firm-soldered conception as a triad. This was not to suggest that he did not require their companionship just as tirelessly; an overabundance of either circumstance would most certainly unbalance him. 

Ciryon was, in so many ways, ever the gentlest of the three. 

He was also, to Legolas’ mounting concern, the child missing from the cinder-faced gathering beneath his beloved mallorn. 

“Ada!” Rohrith bleat upon seeing him, his relief glaring. Both he and Brithor launched themselves into Legolas’ arms with a fervor he had not felt since they were infants. 

“Ada, Ciryon is terrifically dour,” Brithor quickly appraised him, though neither twin gave even the briefest consideration to pulling out of his hold. “He retreated to his cabin above just after luncheon and will not come out! Nor will he accept that we climb up to comfort him, indeed, he shuns our care, though we know deep within he is suffering most viciously from some seething sorrow.” 

“We attempted to sneak up,” Rohrith seconded with ever-intensifying urgency. “But he collapsed the ladder!” The ladder was indeed nearly embedded in the lawn beside. “His pain is gutting, Ada, I have never felts its like!”

“Ever has he sought sanctuary in our twinness in times of strife,” Brithor finished breathlessly. “He growled at us to leave him be and has not spoken a word since!” For one of Brithor’s compassionate nature, the need for privacy in grief was an impossible notion, especially where his brothers were concerned. “How can he survive such devastation without our succor, Ada? Verily, it strikes me to the bone.” This last was whispered with such foreboding, a chill squeaked down Legolas’ spine. 

His softest son had never behaved in such an overtly hostile fashion, most certainly not towards his dearest brothers. Legolas could not help but be struck by similarly frightful torrents, though he steadied himself, as ever, in the face of parental fear. Though he inwardly wished Elrohir was at home, he was of mettle enough to deal with even this peculiar circumstance; he needed to assuage his frazzled younglings long enough to consult, in true privacy, with Ciryon. 

First above all, however, he required certain nuggets of vital information they had overlooked in the thrall of emotion. 

“But how did such a tragic mood come about?” Legolas calmly questioned them. “What precipitated his distress? His retreat?” 

“I know not for certes, Ada,” Rohrith explained. “Though we suspect – however strangely – that the contents of a parcel delivered to him just before noon were the cause.” 

“I was just set to return home from the archery grounds,” Brithor elaborated. “When Orniath caught me up. He gave me a package for Ciryon, from whom he would not say. I felt that the parcel contained a book of sorts, so I assumed it had arrived by courier for Erestor or that the Loremaster himself wanted Ciryon to peruse it before resuming their work on the morrow. As we three brothers had convened to lunch together, I delivered the package, as requested. Ciryon instantly spirited away to his bedchamber, swearing not to tarry long.” 

“A howl, Ada, such as I have never heard afore, soon sounded from his rooms,” Rohrith pressed on, his black eyes wet. “We crept down the corridor, thinking we had mistook despair for glee, but soon Ciryon blazed past us, muttering his excuses and racing towards his tree. We followed him, wondering at the trouble and urging him to let us succor him, but to no avail.”

“He shrieked at us, Ada,” Brithor underlined, with too-evident remorse. “I have never heard him so fierce with sorrow! We begged him to come down, to allow us up, *anything* to staunch the pain…” 

“Which we know, Ada, as if it were our own,” Rohrith completed the bleak picture. “Such agony as I had never thought to be stricken with, such…” He hesitated a moment, his eyes flickering but an instant over to his twin for approval, then back to their imploring of Legolas. “Such *grief*, Ada.” 

The dire conclusion made Legolas’ blood run ice. Such a feeling, if prolonged, if unremedied, among such tenderlings could spread like a plague between them. Few mere twins were bonded as his triplets were; for all their individuality he oftentimes felt they could indeed share a soul. If one even but flirted with grief, amidst the tumult of adolescence, then they could all suffer, all sicken, all… what in Elbereth’s name did that package contain?! Yet not frustration nor ire would serve him in the present circumstance, he must repress his fatherly instinct to brash action and instead cultivate his woeful son’s confession. He must, above all, bring him down before nightfall. 

“I regret I was so long away, ioneth,” he apologized to his fretful ones. “Why did you not summon me from the start?” 

“We feared he would only retreat further into melancholy,” Brithor admitted. “Or worse, become despondent and refuse to speak to anyone. We thought that if he would not confide to us…” 

“Aye, you are his confessors in most things,” Legolas assured them. “But Ciryon has ever desired some slight measure of privacy in his most heartful dealings. Ada-Hir has often told me of his timidity, in these affairs, of his need to prove his worth to you both. Perhaps, in this calamitous matter, he merely required a more experienced ear.” 

“I pray you are right, Ada,” Rohrith mused, though seemed somewhat unconvinced. 

Legolas, however, was appraised of a certain liaison of his shy son’s upon the ocean vast, of which even this bright twosome knew naught, as Ciryon had sought his fathers’ advice in secret and thereafter sworn them to abject secrecy. Only Elrohir knew the name of the elf involved, though Legolas had guessed easily enough; indeed, he marveled at how Ciryon had managed to keep the entire affair from his ever-goading brothers for over two years, especially when correspondence from said enamored elf was quite regularly disguised by a trusted emissary, received by them, and thus forwarded to their gentle brother. 

He could only hope this last letter did not contain the black news Legolas now suspected therein, for what else could so unravel his usually poised and considerate son? He suddenly longed to gather his sorrow-wrecked elfling in his arms, in the manner which these two were still ensconced, and to bear through his thundering, quaking wrath in the seafarer’s stead, so that he might find an outlet for his pain. To carry his exhausted body home and to rock him into fitful slumber, to wait in vigil the night long, as any caregiver would. He swore to himself he would accomplish this, and more, for his beleaguered son, but first he must sneak an audience with him. 

“Go to your grandmothers,” he urged to the wrought twosome. “Tis miserable luck that both your Ada-Hir and your Nana are away at such a time. Await my summons there, but fear not that I will summon you home, whether I meet with success or no. Tell your grandsire of the trouble, also, have him stir up a sleeping draught.” Before releasing them, he whispered into their ebony hair. “Be at ease, ionethen, I will soothe him.” 

Though quite obviously loathe to depart, the two quit him in haste, linking their arms in solidarity as they ambled through the willows. 

Twas little trouble for one reared in Greenwood the Great to scale the ladder-less tree, the natural knots, curves, and branchlets serving as barely necessary grips and footholds for the wood-elf. His entrance, from the small balcony, was effected soundlessly; a mischief-marred life did have its accomplishments. The figure crouched over the ornate writing desk was surrounded by a veritable cyclone of leafs, crumpled balls, and shards of torn parchment, though his quill yet scratched out another ink-smeared missive; his latest attempt to answer in strained, simple words what had upturned his entire world. Ciryon’s already lank frame seemed withered to emaciation, as if sorrow had scored the very meat from his bones. His once nimble scribe-fingers trembled as they scrawled across the page, they dabbed the quill in the ink pot as if a crow beak pecking out an eye. His pallid face, though half obscured by a ragged curtain of hair, was severely set; his black eyes festered with determination. He had fought a title-bout against weeping and won, this was plain enough by the bulging veins of his temple, the puffy, purple swell of his eyes. That he was rabidly furious was clear, but Legolas had not considered that the object of his fury was his own, perilously weak, despicably vulnerable self. He was not being corroded by mourning over a lost love, but by self-berating over his inability to behave in accordance with his ideal, to accept his lot from said absent love. 

Legolas knew such a feeling all too well, having been fed on by it himself; its bleak travesty evoked such memories as he would rather not recall, though he would do what he must to aid his son, even this. 

“By the Valar, nin pen-ind,” he announced himself, leaving little enough space between them to catch a fleeing elf. “What in the heavens has befallen you?” 

With a gasp, Ciryon wrenched himself around, his weary eyes disbelieving that relief had finally come in such fond, fatherly form. 

“Ada,” he bleat, then flew to his feet, quill, parchment, and ink bottle all spilt to the floor in his haste. 

To Legolas’ incredulity, he soon had an armful of shuddering elfling, whose thin, seemingly impotent grasp nearly crushed him to gristle and dust. Ciryon was soon almost entirely burrowed in his embrace, when Legolas gathered them both up into a waiting armchair. He still stubbornly refused to shed a tear, though he quaked such as to shake off his very skin and whimpered like a wounded pup. Through every means possible, Legolas infused his brittle son with his warmth, even balming his frayed spirit with the cozy heat of his soul flame. Only his sire, Elrohir, could truly engulf him in such paternal affections, but his distress left him open to any influence and Legolas took heartful advantage of his affliction. 

After a time Ciryon righted himself in his arms, even smiling faintly when their eyes met. Legolas kissed his swollen temple and pet his messy head, with such softness that Ciryon soon squeezed his lids shut, though he again conquered his sorrow. 

“What is the trouble, dear one?” Legolas essayed, after a time. “Your brothers are incensed with worry, and I am not far behind them.” 

Ciryon lingered on a lonely sigh, bowed his head as if in shame. 

“Tis but a… tis ridiculous,” he struggled to explain. “I knew very well the consequences… that there was but a slender chance… but still I had hoped… but I knew. I *knew* there could be naught but promises, not… certainties. Not sureties. Not facts.” 

“The letter you received,” Legolas attempted to fill in without upsetting him too much. “It was from…?” 

“Aye,” Ciryon whined morosely. “I should have calmed myself beforehand, but it has been nearly a sixmonth since… I should have taken luncheon, then opened it.” 

“You *should* have summoned me at once, pen-neth,” Legolas chided gently, with another peck to his temple. “You should not have suffered so without proper consolation.” 

“I deserve to suffer, if I cannot counsel myself,” he insisted, his brow quite reproachfully furrowed. “I knew what I undertook. I knew the chances. I knew…” 

“What did he write of to upset you do?” Legolas asked, almost without breath himself. “Did he break with you?” 

“Nay,” Ciryon exhaled, though one wondered whether such an alternative was attractive to him. “Though I will not see him again for… for an impossible time. He will not, as once thought, be allowed leave to… to celebrate my majority.” Legolas himself sighed with new sobriety, all becoming quite vividly clear to him. “His ship is already en route to Laurelin. They have received quite a considerable commission from the King. The last stragglers from Greenwood have reached the Havens. They await safe passage to Aman.” 

“He will sail to Arda?!” Legolas started, himself afflicted by this strange news. 

“Ten times over,” Ciryon elaborated, cringing at the very thought. “Lorien is also put to bed, those that wish to remain having moved south to Ithilien. Those that wish to come home are numerous. The ship, though sturdy, will not fit them all comfortably. There are many Sinda nobles finally rejoining their King, many stalwarts who require accommodation… the repeated voyages will take… over eight years.” As Legolas fully absorbed the implications of such an unprecedented event, Ciryon drifted out of his arms, towards the sunset-glow of the window, as if he might find consolation in the enclosing twilight, as if even his father’s touch seared his skin through. “I know I show my innocence by being so affected by such a… an inevitability. I would be brave-faced if I could, I would take measures to… I think of the fraught time of your own coming to majority, Ada, how you waited for Ada-Hir, how you took every advantage to claim your maturity, to learn what manner of elf might be best mated to him. You did not even know, from month to month, if he yet lived!! And yet you never lost heart…”

“Twas a more visceral time, pen-neth,” Legolas related, as he rose to follow him. “The years flew past like a flock of crows; the threat of war loomed large, true, but the fight itself was entirely captivating. To tell you true, I remember very little from that time, though I was of majority. My life began with your Ada-Hir. Before his heart filled me I was but a ghost of myself. And you pointedly forget a rather salient fact of our great stretch of absence.” 

Ciryon finally tuned to him, his eyes once again inquiring: “Which is this?” 

“That we knew each other in love, ere he parted from me,” Legolas appraised him. “He had my majority with him where he roamed, and I had given of it freely. We had not but a smatter of kisses between us, but a love. We were betrothed after a fashion, even bonded by a simple blood rite. There was no mistaking that we would have been mates, regardless of whether either of us fell. We could not have bonded with another, as we would have been reunited here in Aman. Indeed, even after our binding… I always expected to fall, in the Ring War. I never truly thought I would survive the final battle.” Struck to the core by this revelation, Ciryon went deadly still. “Your own situation is far more precarious, I do not wonder that you are so afflicted by it. You expected, quite rightly, to be given your majority by the one you hold dearest of all. Instead… you must either delay, or act traitorously towards him, to say nothing of the uncertainty of your ship-hold vows to one another. Were I given a similar decision, I would certainly be overcome. I would allow myself ample time to grieve, for how else could I see my way clear to him?” 

The tears came on like a flood; at first the clatter of his teeth, then the clench of his jaw, then a wrenching mewl dredged up from the very pit of his being, and at last such heaving sobs that Legolas dashed over to catch him, lest he faint away. They lasted through the setting sun, through their careful descent from his cabin sanctuary, through the swift walk to their house and into the dusk-shroud confines of Legolas’ bedchamber. They began again after a daring cup of tea and a spare-worded summons to his waiting brothers, who found him cradling their bereft third as if a babe in his arms. 

The midnight hour struck bold, when finally Ciryon relinquished his strangle-hold on consciousness, though Legolas did not dare release him. Elrohir, alerted through the siring bond, slipped into bed soon after, having raced back from the coast. 

 

Buffered by his caring fathers, Ciryon slept long past the dawn; heartened by a bond that would outlast even the Halls of Waiting. 

* * *

Winter, Year 196, Fourth Age

A fierce blade of lightening scythed through the fuming cast of cloud, singeing an electric fault through the seizing sky. The heavens roared with the charred, smiting fire of a Balrog, spewing torrents of rain, cinder, and ash into the tempestuous sea. 

The wiry captain of the Gray Gull had sailed every league of ocean along the inhabited coast of Aman, but never in his time had he witnessed such furious skies, not even when Taniquetil raged with Valarian malcontent. An evil of some ancient origin must be afoot, though he had little chance to contemplate its provenance, as his hull scraped perilously close to the incisive coral shelf that surrounded the Isle of Omen. Swerving manically to avoid the cyclones and whirlpools that threatened to sunder them, the ship was being held together by the sheer will of his sailors, their agile, clenching bodies strewn through the rigging, yanking in the sails, and battling the elements with barbaric audacity. Barking orders through the gale winds, the captain attempted to grapple up to the helm to add the force of his weight to the near colossal task of steering.

A titanic wave lashed up above them like a liquid tongue; if it crashed the sea would swallow them whole. With a violent lurch starboard, the deft helmsman careened the ship along the curl of the wave, gliding them so airily over the crest that everyone took a breath, before the jolt of slapping back onto the ocean threw them into an unwitting forward summersault. Though a few fumbled the landing and one tumbled from the rigging onto the hard deck, far more would have been drowned if the wave had broke over them. 

The captain, however, had not another breath to spare in admiration for the cunning elf’s maneuver, as they were assaulted by a shower of lightening bolts, each more acutely aimed than the last. Bounding the ship through shoals of sizzling sea, his keen helmsman, emerald eyes like otherworldly beacons in the coal-black night, rode the pummeling waves as a bareback rider on an unbroken colt. Swishing their rudder like a whip, he thinly missed blast after blast of blinding light, though a swarm of sparks hovered above the deck almost becomingly. 

By the time the captain finally clamped hands onto the feeble portside rail and staggered up to the helm, the ship was racing far too speedily into the blunt face of a cliff. He only had eyes for the towering, barnacled rock they plunged towards. He muttered a hasty blessing to Elbereth before bracing for the shattering impact; when none came, he thought himself in Mandos. Fluttering his eyes open anew, he discovered that the suffocating blackness was, to his astonishment, caused by their retreat into the mouth of a cave, though their clip was still dangerously quick for the uncharted depths of a fire mountain. 

The expected slam-stop came seconds later, accompanied by a cringing crack of wood, but only a manageable throw into the stair planks for him. 

A wild urgency overtook his crew, to light torches, to survey their surroundings, to account for every elf and to unload stores onto the slender bank of sand before the ship sank. His fleet Gray Gull, his purpose, his livelihood, and his longtime companion, would not survive her wreckage, though his sailors were yet determined to. Ever an elf of action in times of crisis, the captain hurled humble-voiced commands at his seconds, before leaping up to the helm; to no doubt pry the yet gripping fingers of his brave helmsman off the wheel and guide his groaning, exhausted self to safety. 

Their rescuer, however, was not to be found at first glance. Instead, after a frantic search, the captain uncovered his prone frame from beneath a wayward shard of sail. Tendrils of mahogany hair splayed like seaweed around his viciously bruised head, the young elf was pale and limp as the white canvass that had blanketed him like the ominous portent of a death shroud. 

With no time to consider the extent of his injuries, nor even prod for signs of life, the captain gathered him up in his arms and fled for the uncertain shelter of the cave’s inner shore. 

* * * 

With a ponderous sigh, Elrohir sunk further into the downy climes of the armchair and drank in the tipsy celebrations around him. At Brithor’s behest, a dancing round now swirled before the minstrels, he chief among the revelers. The surrounding tables of well-wishers were otherwise subdued, chatting, debating, and jesting in small groups of familiars. The most raucous among these was the central round of youngling swordbrothers, where his bold Rohrith held court. Ciryon lingered on the outskirts of these rapt loyals, in hush confidence with Miriel and Cuthalion at the adjoining table, where across the way Tinuviel whispered rather conspiratorially with his own, radiant Legolas. 

As the proposed invitations for their begetting day festivities had been carefully vetted by the triplets, the gathering of elves was by all intents a humble one, consisting only of extended family, the dearest of friends, and a few deferential acquaintances. All parents had heartily approved such restrictions, proud that their sons, after blazing through the societal wilds of Gondolen, had learned to distinguish beast from beauty, fondness from falsehood. Despite their rather daunting collective talents, his triplets were never ones to flaunt themselves, preferring the kindling of their common bond to the fire of celebrity. Though Elrohir did not doubt their chastening of the guest list had ruffled more than a few plumages, he doubted that those hawkeyes overlooked had themselves the purest of intentions on this most predatory of nights, as the wolfine triplets of Elrond’s line were now free game. He could not help himself from feeling a tingle of paternal pride at the gracious manner in which each one was facing the perils of their majority rites, though he also suffered an echoing prick of sadness at their boldly evidenced maturity. 

His babes had once again grown far too swiftly.

As Brithor ably spun a comely, shale-eyed maid about the floor, Elrohir thought it increasingly unlikely that his most amiable and romantically adventurous of sons would indeed pass the night, as promised, with his brothers, in Tathren and Echoriath’s care. Twas not the first occasion on which the lovely ellyth, a distant relation of Nenuial’s lately come to visit the vale, had been observed in his son’s glaringly bedazzled company; the pair’s coy flirtations had been gathering steam for over a month. Brithor, despite his guarded reactions and his playboy repute, was smitten. In her glowing presence, on this magic night, he could not properly school his too-evident desire, whose intensity, upon their first encounter, had so taken the young elf by surprise that he had, astoundingly, sought out Elrohir’s confidence. Brithor had never been known to confess himself to other than Tathren, whom he outright worshipped, but he was so shamefaced at his heart’s subtle rousing that he could not admit, even to his golden brother, that he might fancy the maid. 

For all his renown prowess, Brithor had never before felt pure loving towards his bed-partners, merely the by-products of bodily tenderness. The feeling had stunned him, frightened him, and sent him sneaking into Elrohir’s study upon a chill midnight after one particularly poignant stroll by the river with his maid, his face pinched and his manner fraught. Elrohir had counseled him to proceed with caution, though he himself did not doubt that this was but a passing interlude in Brithor’s many future romantic pursuits. Regardless, the mating of bodies in love was no simple pleasure; he had done his best to clear tensions and obstacles from Brithor’s path. By his son’s shining eyes, he skipped rather gleefully towards this heady destination, never one to be long bested by even the most grating anxiety. 

Rohrith, himself renown for his brashness of action for all his controlled logic in debate, also appeared to be headed towards a fleeting indulgence, this night, though at the moment he was yet far less convinced of it than his merry twin. Unbeknownst to his strictly guarded heart - for it was pledged, most tragically, to one who might never return its fervor - he currently swam in shark-infested waters. Though loyal to him in the battle-sense, friends to a fault, and devout to his many righteous causes, the training soldiers about him were not at all oblivious to his rabidly luring self. Indeed, Elrohir’s seasoned eyes spotted at least four among their ranks who displayed rather overt hints of besotting, two of whom, he was sure, were half-cocked enough to make a play before night’s end. Rohrith, for his part, was slowly becoming cognizant of their appraisal, though his abashed personality could not yet quite conscience such implicit information as fact. Though of fearsome skill on the training grounds, his mind was of too philosophic a makeup to entirely admit to his own comeliness, nor had it yet resolved to a course of action, for his heart – that insurgent organ – was yet embroiled in its own overwhelming melodrama of unrequited affection. 

Rohrith was rather painfully enamored of one who, Elrohir judged, would forever remain at large. Dioren was his son’s closest confidant, his most brutally loyal friend, but the longly troubled elf was also fixated on maids as suitable bed-partners. As the many mysteries of Dioren’s true nature had yet to entirely unravel themselves, only Elbereth knew if there was even the bleakest hope, the sparest chance of their future togetherness. For the moment, Rohrith held a quiet faith in, but also grieved terribly over, the faint glimmer of jealously in Dioren’s pale eyes as these others coveted his dear friend’s charms. This was the crux of his mounting despair: to give in to his curiosity, learn his bed-lessons well from a trusted friend, and be later empowered should Dioren become convinced of his unknown affections’ worth, or to remain true to his heart, chaste in body, and perhaps forgo his own betterment, his own physical fulfillment, for naught. As the evening glided on and the wine flowed generously, Rohrith, though hardly drunk, seemed to be leaning towards the former. The more forcefully Dioren repressed his strange, riotous emotions, the more disheartened Rohrith quite visibly became, thus the comfort of a ready bed-teacher appeared all the more enticing. That Tathren and Echo had earlier surprised the brothers with the gift of a barge sail along the river after midnight, to spirit the triplets and their closest friends to the shore for a short holiday, only further attracted him. Dioren would no doubt be all-too-aware, in such close-quartered cabins, of what indulgences were taking place just doors down. While Rohrith was by no means a vindictive elf, his acute despair over the situation was slowly overtaking him, making such immature, though sharply pointed, actions all the more inevitable. 

Elrohir, however sympathetic to his ongoing agony, could do nothing but wish his son a night of pleasure and of relief; none was more deserving than his sterling little upstart of some sensual enjoyment, some relaxation. 

Excepting perhaps the sweetest of the three. Though Ciryon’s circumstance improved upon his brother’s in that he knew very well of his suitor’s adoration, his unexpected absence had cut the poor dear gut-deep. By all appearances, Ciryon was in festive spirits this night, but these were hard-won after months of devastation and a slight depression. Each member of their tight-knit family was on strict orders to cheer him if but the merest frown shroud his lush features, but outwardly there seemed to be no great need. Ciryon had, since striding into the hall with unusual confidence, kept himself relentlessly occupied, in lively conversation with his brothers, in fetching mead for his elders, and in gaming at cards with his naughty uncles, who had been stunned into poverty by his victories. Glorfindel had even suggested that his talents were wasted in research, that he had the keen mind of a master strategist, though unfortunately no war in which to ply his skills. Legolas had riposted that fortune rather *was* his, and indeed had blessed all their sons, to flourish in such peaceful times. Ciryon had simply chuckled in his own, bashful way, while setting down yet another winning hand. 

At present, some Mirkwood mischief was afoot. Legolas and his Tinuviel were quite blatantly in cahoots over some ribald ruse, snickering mercurially between hush, frantic exchanges. Elrohir never ceased to marvel at how their daughter was, but with another gender, her sire reincarnate. Tinuviel was possessed of mirror-image looks and temperament to her ethereal father: mirthful, shrewd, ferociously protective, immovably loyal, a girlish gallant of laurelled honor, and secretive in her tight-held affections. An archer of unsurpassed skill, with the exception of Legolas himself, Tinuviel was the heir apparent to her father’s preternatural ability with the bow. As soon as her talents became plain, Legolas had swiftly taken reign of her tutelage, relishing the chance to impart all the tricks of his long-plied trade. Though his heart belonged to all of his children, Tinuviel was Legolas’ treasure. The pride he took in simply being with her was a stunning sight to behold; one that, time and again, nearly bested Elrohir. 

For the moment, the elf-knight remained but a passive observer, sure as he was that some comedy was about to unfold; indirectly intended, as all of Legolas’ ploys were, for his amusement.

Indeed, Tinuviel then sprung rather gleefully to her feet. She sauntered over to her unsuspecting brother, crouched over to whisper to him, and tugged quite emphatically at his sleeve. Ciryon was, at first, extremely nonplussed by her proposal. He struggled to be kind, to be cool as they debated, though her request met with the expected, virulent reluctance. Tinuviel, vessel of Legolas’ impish spirit and wily wood-elf in her own right, would have none. Knowing well how to wield her influence over even this most sage of brothers, she twinkled cutely at him, pouted with a convincing, quivering lip, then implored with the fervor of the faithful. Ciryon had unwittingly lost the battle before it had even rightly begun, none of the triplets could ever dare deny her anything so hotly insisted upon. 

Before he himself knew what to make of his acquiescence, Ciryon rose to dance with his sister. 

As he was energetically yanked along behind her, twin touches of silken softness glided down the sides of Elrohir’s face, over his arms. With an unctuous purr, the elf-knight slipped elegantly aside to make room for his mate, who yet bristled with the potential of his sly sleight. They nestled in quite snugly together, easy as always in the other’s warm embrace, content to watch over their budding brood from the lofty confines of their armchair. 

“You are wicked to prod him so,” Elrohir chided him good-naturedly. 

“He only required some soft encouragement,” Legolas countered. “Look how he is joyful! He will thrill at his boldness, come morn.” Ciryon’s reserve was indeed lost to the moment, to the merriment of clopping about as unofficial maid to his sister’s leading steps. “She’s enchanted him, as always, and she will not let him up until midnight, when they must depart for the barge. He has forgotten his trouble in seconds.” 

“I wish I could so easily forget it,” Elrohir mused, in confidence. “I am yet haunted by visions of him cradled in your arms, melethron, ragged-eyed and despondent with grief. I had hoped the fates might have yet shined on him…” 

“Is he not fortunate enough to have found such a worthy elf to love with?” Legolas remarked. “Their future bond would be for naught without some strain, some trials to overcome, their joy unearned if ever blissful. They are well matched, we knew it from the start. We were so pleased when we discovered the tenacity of their friendship and guessed at their love with the foresight of elders, in Gondolen. We must take heart that our timid one has found such a mate. His strength will come in weathering his absences.”

“I, however, may not weather them so well,” Elrohir chuckled, but was serious in intent. “It saddens me so that he will be alone, this night of nights. Even among friends, he will be lonely in heart. 

With a pained sigh, Legolas acknowledged the truth of this.

“Perhaps he will be lured elsewhere, for teaching,” he commented, though seemed to doubt himself even as he spoke. “Rohrith seems almost convinced to follow such a course.”

“In the face of such ardent rejection, how else could he react?” Elrohir underlined. “Ciryon could not even hit upon such an option, in his adoring state.” 

“Yet he attracts as many admirers,” Legolas insisted. “You have marked them well as I, melethron. Perhaps, in the confines of the barge, he might be swayed.” 

“Do you wish that he be swayed, and suffer the consequences?” Elrohir asked outright, surprised that Legolas would champion such resorts. 

“I wish for his pleasure, for his ease in mind,” he assured him, emphasizing his words with a soft kiss. “By whatever means he finds suit him best, be they abstinent or indulgent. I would lessen the burden of his heart. That is all.” 

“Then in this, as most things, we are in rapt accordance,” Elrohir murmured to him, his apology for his sharpness implicit in his gentle tone. “But tell me… will his fathers similarly find their ease in abstinence, this night, or will they also fall prey to… *carnal* indulgence?”

“My thoughts, as well as the requisite, baser regions of my rather covetous body,” Legolas smirked predatorially, licking a hot tongue up the delicate slope of his ear. “Are rather unanimously resolved towards your thorough and ruthless ravishing, Elrohir-nin.” 

“Then the midnight hour, my golden one,” he saucily responded. “Cannot strike swiftly enough.” 

They sealed their intent with an incendiary kiss, but soon counseled themselves. There were still, after all, so many tenderlings to yet watch over. 

* * *

The somnolent winter woods had never been awakened by such a ruckus, at such an unconscionably late hour, not in all their seasons of ageless sagacity. The scurry of a stray critter had perhaps disturbed them, the patter of a hurried journeyman had perchance roused their protective instincts, but rarely indeed did such trampling, such a cacophony, such bawdy songs, bellowed in an unseemly slur, and such uproarious cheers, the mating-calls of rowdy ingrates, disturb the sterile air of the first snow. While they understood that the frost had not yet settled in, encasing them in fragile, yet blissfully soundless ice, they had never thought that *elves*, especially ones so young, with such brittle limbs, that could so easily miss an branch in their over-energetic bounding and fall quite ungraciously to the hard, injurious ground, would be so neglectful of the delicate ecology of a wintering, midnight forest. 

Ciryon, lagging behind his wine-drenched company, heard all too acutely the trees’ imperious distress. A woodsman’s warning trill had done nothing to temper the merry-making mob, lead by none other than his own, mirth-enflamed twin, so instead he hummed a soothing song as he followed them. Dioren, quite gallantly, had offered to escort him to the barge; they strolled along arm in arm. Ciryon suspected that Dioren felt shunned by Rohrith, who himself was engaging in a necessary, desperate act of self-protection, and wished to confidentially inquire of things he had no right to be privy to, for no reason he could properly convince himself of, which therefore precipitated his abject silence. Ciryon, though sympathetic to both their plights, was not about to betray his brother, but he could offer Dioren, possessed of a treacherously delicate ecology all his own, some quiet support. 

Besides, the night was cold!! A warm body, however aloof, to supplement his cloak was doing wonders for his shivering, fatigued frame. He was beginning to consider coupling with a familiar just to keep his blood from freezing solid. He also bemoaned, but could not entirely begrudge, Brithor’s forgoing of their trip to lie with his likely lass, as his brother would most certainly have curled up in downy security with him, otherwise. He hoped he could somehow coerce Tathren and Echoriath to allow him to cuddle up with them for a while, though he did realize the perils of positioning himself as a barrier between them for the entire night. He was, after all, an elfling no longer, and they could not be counted on to school themselves in sleep. Not that he would be witnessing ought he had not come upon before, say under the thatch of shady elms by the forge… 

Ciryon took a moment to reflect upon his rather boundless cheer. He had never thought the night would pass so happily for him, nor that he would be in such high spirits by the time they schlepped towards the barge. Tinuviel had cast her usual sweetly spell upon him, verily she was a charge of purest light in their lives. He must remember to thank her, upon their return, and gift her with some treat or other. Indeed, he felt so gleeful that he could presently swing Dioren into step and swirl about the snobby trees, though the somber elf might very well smack some sense into him if he tried. With no little forethought, he had snuck the pack of cards and the satchel of chips into his sack; a night of gaming suited him fine. Besides, a doting brother did have to do his part in distracting the other suitors from barging into Rohrith’s cabin and dragging out the lover of his choice to suffer their hotheaded wrath. He snickered some at this silly image, but swallowed his mirth when an elderly oak let out a snort of reproach; verily, this wood was an ornery lot! 

Despite his buoyant attitude, a hidden part of him did wish, rather desperately, that Ivrin traveled with them. More than just the opportunity to enjoy him physically, Ciryon would also have cherished the chance to simply play with him, his wry humor and his cunning jests ever engaging to all about. Ciryon felt well-partnered with him; when out in society, an accomplice to his merriment, a co-conspirator in his hastily whispered, often rather scathing commentary. Even in earlier years, before their affections were revealed, they were as one against the uncouth hordes, blessed with the sort of intuitively complicit friendship that united them, elevated their bond above all others. They had known, of course, that this was not entirely so, but that it seemed so had heartened him greatly, had paved the way to the love he now felt so vividly; even without the centrifugal focus on its most revered object. 

Though at present he must shift focus from such potentially ruinous thoughts. He had not felt so light since learning of Ivrin’s Laurelin-commissioned obligations; he would not quit the sensation to retreat back into melancholy. There was yet a considerably stretch of night before him, along with a barge full of loyal friends and a rapidly coming holiday by the sea. Glowering was strictly forbidden! 

Somewhere ahead, the first boot clicks pattered over the dock. The torch-lit barge loomed, like a spectral shrine, in the distance, swathed in a smoky mist. The raft was larger and more elaborate a construction than Ciryon had expected, but then Echoriath was seeing to the comfort of so many dear ones, he should not have doubted its design would be suitably majestic. Of greater urgency and import, its center glowed as if its heart were aflame, though he knew well it was only the coal hearth that would heat them. Heat was more than welcome aboard! He could not help but squeeze Dioren’s arm at the sight of it, though the peredhel bore the pinch in sober stride, as ahead the riotous others clamored onto the deck. Catching Dioren by the hand, he almost skipped over the dock such was his glee, as from the helm a piercing whistle sounded out, to incite them to make haste. Tathren and Echoriath waited, arm in arm, atop the step ladder, ready as ever with a warm, affectionate embrace. 

It was Tathren himself who marked the manic gallop of hooves, after the first rope was thrown off. Despite the pilot’s insistence that they press on, he stayed him, peering out with keen, hunter’s eyes into the blackness. Though Dioren had gone below, Ciryon tarried awhile, linking arms with Echoriath while they waited out the arrival of what none currently doubted was a messenger, or some other providence, racing to catch them. 

At last, a fearsome rider emerged from the barren trees, bearing down on his steed as if Sauron himself was chasing him. The poor, overworked horse skidded to a halt but a step before the dock, his hide mauled by clinging icicles of congealed sweat, though he was still streaming, steaming vaporous clouds into the night. The heavily cloaked rider dismounted with care, cursed upon his landing; when he lurched forward, none could mistake how his left leg was slightly lame. Though none aboard recognized his colors – few could be earnestly perceived in the dim torchlight – or his hooded countenance, Tathren leapt down to aid his progress, greeting the grateful elf halfway and supporting him on his wounded side. 

Despite his ongoing haste, the rider struggled as mightily for breath as his horse; he had obviously been unwell when he undertook his journey and its strain had not been kind to him. Nothing, however, could have prepared Ciryon for the shedding of his hood, for the revelation of the unexpected, and frankly shocking, face cloaked beneath. 

It was Ivrin, of course, but scarred as if viciously beaten, though this did nothing to temper the intensity of his handsomeness. Ciryon flew down the ladder, but stopped short of the wild embrace he had envisioned for their reunion, struck as he was by his beloved’s fragility. Instead, he crept forward as if towards a startled horse, locking eyes with the exhausted elf to assure him that it was, indeed, his heart before him; that he had, at last, reached his destination. Ivrin looked fit to weep, if not from relief than from the tumult of the ride; Ciryon did not know from where he had departed, but he doubted he had stopped but for the briefest respite. This heartened him so that he moved a bit faster, unable to keep longer from his love, from the one who had risked so much merely to be at his side, this celebratory night. 

No words could truly speak of such gallant intentions, of his gratitude for them, so he carefully cupped his battered face and softed the blithest of kisses over his needful mouth. 

Ivrin whimpered, but not from pain. He loosed his arms so that Ciryon might weave his own around him, parted his lips so that he might taste his sweetness. Without warning, he collapsed against him, groaning such that Ciryon thought him somehow afflicted. His crushing grip, however, could not be rightly pried from him, not until Ciryon hugged him ardently and thoroughly, whispering that they were indeed together, that all would be well from thereon. Ivrin rallied some brittle hold on himself, then, realizing that he was frightening the very elf he’d sought to comfort with his presence, though he would not - verily could not – bring himself to entirely release his hold on Ciryon. 

Nor would Ciryon himself have desired this. He had not had but an instant to process the fact of Ivrin’s arrival, though Echoriath and Tathren were already aflutter with altered plans. Unbeknownst to the reunited couple, Echo had slipped in to inform Rohrith of this strange development; his tale had met with a resounding cheer. A compromise had been struck, though their holiday by the sea was postponed indefinitely. Ivrin was, by ample evidence, in dire need of some medical examination. Ciryon could not be left to tend to him alone. The barge, therefore, would sail up and down the river until late morning, when it would return to the dock. Tathren and Echoriath would remain ashore to help Ivrin to their apartments, to where Elrond would be summoned. If all was well enough with the state of his health, he and Ciryon would sleep there and stay at their leisure; Tathren and Echo would find some other accommodations for the following few days. 

By the time even this brief recitation was told them, Ivrin’s head lolled upon Ciryon’s shoulder, his eyes flittering in and out of consciousness. Sleep weighed so heavily upon him that they had to ease him to the ground while waiting on Tathren to fetch fresh horses; Ciryon cradling him all the while and caressing the crown of his silky hair. 

He could not help, despite Ivrin’s haggard appearance, but spark with excitement at the potential of the coming days ahead. Even the chance to laze the night away with his beloved wrapped in his arms spoke of such promise, he did not think he could dare sleep. 

The Lady had, somehow, impossibly, answered his most fevered prayers. 

 

End of Part Two


	6. Ciryon’s Tale, Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: This is a companion piece to Of Elbereth’s Bounty, which takes place between the action of the final chapter (16) and the epilogue, set centuries in the future. Some of the characters from OEB deserved to have their own stories wrapped up outside of the actual narrative of that tale. This particular tale, along with the soon coming Rohrith’s Tale, concern the majority rites of two of Tathren’s triplet brothers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimers: Characters belong to that wily old wizard himself, Tolkien the Wise, the granddad of all 20th century fantasy lit. I serve at the pleasure of his estate and aim not for profit.   
> Author’s Note: While I think parts of this story can be understood on their own, I think it better to read the whole cycle, or at least Of Elbereth’s Bounty, to completely understand the world I’ve created and the character histories. The series is as follows: Part One is ‘In Earendil’s Light’, Part Two is ‘Under the Elen’, and the vastly larger Part Three is ‘Of Elbereth’s Bounty’.   
> Feedback: Would be delightful.   
> Dedication: To Eresse, as always

Ciryon’s Tale – Part Three

Ivrin’s injuries were not as severe as first suspected. His leg, for one, was not lame, but merely numbed to dullness by his relentless ride. His despondency was caused by dehydration and malnourishment; after a simple, hardying meal and a few carafes of water, he became alert enough to tell Elrond of what inner pains plagued him, of which most were caused by nothing more than his exertions. His face, however, was not beaten by his horse, though he would not confide the cause to the healer, saying only that his bruises had been treated by a skilled medic and that he had salve for them. He longed, quite obviously, to be alone with Ciryon, to give him his explanations before any other. 

Ciryon, luckily for him, could not be pried from his side for all the mithril in Moria. 

A sleeping draught was prepared for him, but Ivrin would have none of it until he was allowed to bathe. Even after a replenishing bath, he refused, so Elrond entrusted the tea mixture to Ciryon, who was yet quite concerned and would administer it unfailingly, when the moment was right. The doting grandsire harrumphed appropriately as to how ‘the riddance of any minority or the performance of any coupling rites whatsoever were not to be even indirectly mentioned, let alone undertaken, this night,’ then left them, with a bemused smile, to their own devices. 

Ciryon could not quite believe his good fortune, nor could he rightly keep from Ivrin for more than a second after Elrond’s departure. He drew Ivrin, so fetching in one of Tathren’s sleek satin robes, over to the bed, then hugged him shyly. The seafarer enclosed him in a rapt embrace, drinking deep of his sweet, downy scent, like fresh fallen snow. Neither was entirely sure how to treat the other; their relationship had bloomed in correspondence and both felt some slight unease expressing such troths in person. Yet there were questions that required elaborate explanations, details described and promises vowed anew, before any plans for majority-making could be broached. 

Ivrin cupped Ciryon’s face, with the implicit tenderness the darkling elf had earlier displayed him, then softed a kiss of like gentility, of abundant affection, over his snarl of lips. Emotion coursed between them as ever before, rapturous, luring, but both knew no answers, nor mindfulness, would come from lingering too long on such a sensuous caress. With an apologetic sigh, Ivrin slipped away as slowly as he had come on; they propped pillows against the headboard and curled up together, Ciryon lapsing into a rather intimate perusal of his face. Though he examined the bruises, he looked far more intently, at the texture of his skin, the angles and plains, over cheekbones, brows, into his eyes. Into the uncharted depths of these emerald pools. Into his soul. 

“I love you,” Ciryon told him, with the earnestness and the facility of innocence. “I have wanted for you so, Ivrin. I cannot claim to know by what calamity you have come home, but I… I cannot be less than grateful for it. I *wanted* you home, melethen, with my entire being.”

“I know it, my tender one,” Ivrin replied, stealing three quick kisses from his neck. “How your countenance was alight when I arrived! I have never seen you thus. So bright. So… merry, it seemed.” 

“Indeed, though I was overwhelmed at the sight of you, I had quite enjoyed the revels,” Ciryon explained, unable to disguise the giddiness of his smile. “I wish you could have arrived earlier, as twas a jovial evening for all invited. Such conversations we undertook! I won enough for a new pony at banyon cards, without cheating once, and later… I danced.” 

“You *danced*?!” Ivrin exclaimed. 

“Aye, with Tinuviel,” Ciryon mused, baffled by his own behavior. “”When she gets an idea in mind, there’s no resisting her.” 

“And the barge?” he asked. 

“Tathren and Echo were to spirit us away to the coast,” Ciryon elaborated. “Rohrith, I, and a party of our familiars. We were to pass several days there, at the surveyors’ camp.”

“They did indeed seem quite *spirited*,” Ivrin chuckled. “I take it the barge was well stocked?”

“I know not, I had barely stepped on board when you reined in your steed,” he grinned in response. “I am so glad of your return, meleth.” 

When he nudged up to kiss him again, Ivrin pressed a pausing finger to his lips. 

“How familiar were these… familiars,” he inquired pointedly, his face tense with apprehension. “They were surely not blessed with pure intentions.” 

“I care not for their intentions,” Ciryon retorted, though was not upset by the insinuation. “I had none of my own.” He understood all too well why Ivrin had pressed his question, for he held similar, as yet inappropriate to voice, fears. He, too, would have his answers in due time. 

“Forgive me,” Ivrin hastened to underline. “I had worried that, when you received my last letter, that you would… I would not blame you for taking some measure of relief.”

“My relief came in the knowing of your care,” Ciryon insisted, taking the kiss denied him. 

“Ten years is beyond any reasonable demand of abstinence,” Ivrin assured him, for naught. “Especially ridiculous for the delay of a majority.” 

“I spit in the face of convention,” Ciryon teased, desperate to hearten him. Ivrin did indeed laugh at such an absurd image. “I desire you alone, melethen.” 

Ivrin, touched and relieved, could not help the foolish grin that struck him. 

“I, too, have wanted for you, Ciryon-nin,” he swore, eyes luminescent with feeling. “I love you.”

“I know it, melethen,” Ciryon murmured, struggling to keep counsel. When his sailor finally blinked his eyes shut, himself overwhelmed by the emotion between them, he took his own chance. “Now, cease this fretting and recount me the tale that brought you home. What of these terrible… yet oddly becoming… bruises?” 

With a hefty sigh, Tathren began: “A tempest such as none in my crew had ever witnessed before struck so suddenly, we scrambled to keep the ship afloat. I steered her true of the storm, then careened her into a cave we came upon. I could not slow her enough for a proper docking, so we crashed onto the beach. I was thrown from the helm, and suffered the bruises you see now, as well as a few scrapes and scars you may later cluck over. The moral is, after a brief period of unconsciousness I emerged relatively uninjured, as did the rest of the crew. As soon as we crawled our way out of the cave and found a nearby village, I realized we were not yet so far north that I could arrive in time to surprise you if I raced down.” Ivrin shrugged, unimpressed with his own relentless drive. “I did so.” 

“You *did so*?” Ciryon snorted, thoroughly amused by his humility. “I dare not ask how long you were in journey, nor how madly you drove that horse, nor, if I am wise, how often you took rest to be so weary. Though may I ask after your ship? Will she sail again?” 

“Nay,” Ivrin bowed his head, as if in deference. “By this time, she must be kindling. The captain dismissed us all. We will not be sailing for Arda, Thranduil will have to find another ship for his commission.”

“Th-then,” Ciryon stuttered, fearful of voicing the very question lest its answer be opposite to his most heartful suspicions. “Then you will… will you, meleth? Will you… remain?” 

“Aye, lovely one,” Ivrin whispered, the candlelight sparkling his bejeweled eyes. “Twill take me some years to befriend another crew.”

“*Years*?!” Ciryon rasped, stunned sober by the significance of his revelation. “Verily?” 

“Two, at my most fortunate,” he concluded. “Though I may tarry longer, to see you grow some.” 

After the most earnest cry of delight he had ever heard, Ivrin was summarily pounced upon, the tender skin of his face veritably showered with pecks and culls, ending with an ebullient draught from his too-ready lips. To his dismay, the relief of revelation made his fatigue all the more obvious; once Ciryon had embraced him fully and most fervently, he sagged against the headboard. Intuiting his beloved’s encroaching exhaustion, Ciryon settled them both beneath the covers, resting Ivrin’s weighty head on his slender chest and securing his arms around him. 

Other cares could wait on his renewal. For the moment, their togetherness was all. 

* * * 

He drifted into wakefulness as a branch down a placid river, his senses yet gauzy and dull with the draught. Forgotten in the droop of late night exhaustion, he’d been stung awake by muscles buzzing with ache but a short time later and thus had been administered the blotting tranquilizer. Skeptical of the seeming comfort of his surroundings, Ivrin kept his eyes shut awhile, instead drinking of the heady, dew scent of morning. 

Strange that there was no creaky sound of ship, no briny stench of drunken seafarer, no snorting horse nor whipping wind about him. There was, somehow, this impossible scent of a meadow at dawn – the satiny sheets that cocooned him were veritably drenched with it - though the hour must be far past by the tipple of sun across his legs. Legs atypically bare, as he wore flannel sleeping trousers in winter; indeed his entire body was rather startlingly unclothed, but also rather pleasantly so, as this allowed his sensitized skin to come in direct, luxurious contact with the downy hide that blanketed him so hotly. 

Truly, the softest hide he’d ever felt before. It baked as if a pouch filled with coals, but did not appear to be treated or tanned. He realized then that his arms were wrapped around the hide, so perhaps it was a pouch of sorts, or a pillow. He’d never felt such a warm pillow, nor one so firm, though for all its plump, sculpted plains, it was gorgeously silken. Its tassels must also be of the finest cord, from the millenaries of Vinyamar, surely, as their gossamer strings brushed so smoothly against his neck and cheek. Ivrin had not the slightest notion how he had come to find himself in such a bed, but he was yet far too woozy to consider disturbing such blithe relaxation in the name of discovery alone.

Suddenly, the wonderful, blanketing pillow-pouch made the most bizarre movement against him. It wriggled. Verily! He was rather put-out by this turn of events, but could yet see no reason to reveal his wakefulness to what must, after a brief time of reasoning, be a creature of some sort over him. A benign and protecting creature, for certes; though after some groggy consideration he concluded that the impossibly fresh scent was being emitted by this very soft, very silky thing, who was also bare as his birthing day and possessed of a rather remarkable tumescence, its slick head currently drooling onto his hip. 

He remembered then, about the darling elf in his arms. He decided to feign unconsciousness a while longer, to see what the deliciously curious, yet currently innocent elf would do, with a slightly older, stunningly nude love of his lying, prone and immovable, in his bed. 

He was pleasantly surprised by his overture. Calming his wriggling as best he could, Ciryon first stilled to admire the sight of his naked lover; his sinuous, though work-roughed, frame and his hauntingly handsome face. Ivrin almost twitched himself, so palpable was the stare of those inquisitive eyes as they raked over him. The second wave of sensation came in the form of avid, daring fingers, which swept over slopes, crooks, and clefts, meticulously mapping out their cherished terrain. They tickled through the wispy strip of hair that connected his navel to his groin, but would not venture further south; his elf would not pass over the invisible boundary into that murky, adult territory without explicit permission, despite the rather distracting state of his implacably turgid length. Ivrin himself had to fight to ignore his insistent stiffness, as he was all-too-anxious to learn what his curious elf would attempt next. 

The answer nearly maddened him. After some flirty suckling of his neck and a devastating lap across the hollow at its base, those scavenging fingertips tickled over a very limp, very lazy nipple. They began to test out their teasing methods with a conviction his hard member could only envy, with each round of worrying came increased vigor, until both nipples were knotted painfully. Ivrin nearly did reclaim unconsciousness, when a slippery tongue darted out to lick them, teeth to nibble them to distraction, until they were so tightly puckered he could not stifle a thoroughly approving groan. 

All movement ceased instantly, his elf a fawn caught in an archer’s crosshairs. 

Betraying a devilish curiosity of his own, as to what his lovely one would do if overtaken by a seemingly dormant, dream-impelled elf, Ivrin lurched his body over as if simply adjusting his pose, in slumber. Keeping his eyes decidedly shut, he snaked his arms around his beloved and drew him perilously close, throwing a leg over to secure him. With a hot haze of breath against his sleek neck, he mumbled some saucy gibberish, the steam, and not the nonsense, causing Ciryon to squirm with guilty delight. He smoothed drowsy hands over the quivering skin of his torso; the body beneath, though live with need, shameful of the consequences if he should urge his love to completion while asleep. These concerns, however, did nothing to keep his eager little wolf-cub – for Ciryon was as snarl-lipped and velveteen as one - from mewling into his temple, keening at the sweep of rope-hewn hands down his backside, or writhing as his taut buttocks were brazenly kneaded. Ivrin felt a jolt seize through his slender frame, then another, and knew the ruse was rapidly becoming too much for one of his innocence. 

He did not, after all, wish to frighten him. 

His eyes fluttered open to meet with orbs as round and wide as black pearls, lips trembling with unspeakable need. He smiled rather wolfishly himself at his tender cub, before pouncing at his mouth; delving with hot, skillful tongue into its savory climes. Ciryon giggled and gasped rather ebulliently, at first, as he was pillaged above and groped beneath, but further below their simmering members began to throb with emergency. Neither was so mature as to long suffer such lively arousal, not when the night had been spent embroiled in the other’s arms. 

Ivrin left off his kiss with a gaudy flick of tongue, to watch his sweet Ciryon’s face as he experienced this first, carnal touch. He palmed him brusquely, for this was no time for gentility, and set a tantalizing rhythm, matched by the ragged breaths they both panted out. Ciryon’s hips soon undulated in sensuous time with his pulls, his airy simpers becoming a constant, throaty moan. Every slide of his coarse fingers over that scarlet, spuming length echoed vividly over his own, though only the head pressed into fleshy, giving thigh. Slipping his leg between straining limbs to spread him further, Ivrin released his now purpled erection and ground their hips flagrantly together. Incensed by the sheer, molten feeling coursing through him, by the thrust and broil of their gyrations, Ciryon bucked wild, thrashing, cursing, then finally surging forth into a glorious ecstasy. Ivrin flamed with his own release soon after, he growled into the sodden skin of his silky little wolf cub’s neck, then cinched their sweaty bodies even closer together as they whispered conspiratorially of their pleasure. 

After a time of repose, Ivrin could sense Ciryon’s spine prickle with a myriad questions, concerns, and, as ever, curiosities; with his body temporarily sated, his ever-reasoning mind was ripe with intrigue over this first taste of partnered sexuality. Still, as his new lover summoned up the courage to pose these rapidly breeding questions, Ivrin held him vigilantly tight; his own wisdom telling him that intellectual elves often dismissed emotion, only for its undertow tides to suddenly, and treacherously, overtake them. Ciryon, however, appeared serene for the present moment, his skin glowing with a becoming flush and his jewel eyes beaming with affection. 

Ivrin could not believe they had not truly exchanged more than a few fevered mutterings since his awakening, the feeling between them so strong as to be unspeakable. Still, they were too comfortable for silence to linger long, with Ciryon’s arrow-point questions fletched-out and ready to shoot forth. As the whitewash of a late winter morn blanched the windows with a filmy, uniform brightness, his little wolf cub gnarled at a plush mound of his bottom lip and foist onyx eyes of an elusive yet meaningful cast upon him. 

“I-Is it vulgar to… to praise your skill, melethen?” he rather demurely inquired. “Your touch was so… nearly… indescribable. I had never thought such a simple thing as another’s touch could be… could wring such… feeling. Even in dreams, I have never been able to…” 

“That is loving,” Ivrin replied, with terrible fondness. 

“Tis very fine, indeed,” Ciryon hushed out, reddening considerably as his mind thought over other acts, of even greater intensity, that they might perform together. 

“I should say so,” Ivrin chuckled, ghosting a caress over his cheek. “Though I yet suffer a few creaks and stabs of tension, my body veritably sung with desire upon awakening to your own quite deft rousing. Do not discount your own, if yet unrefined, skills, my dear one.” 

Ciryon blushed even hotter, if possible, at his compliment; his young, excitable shaft stirring from its short nap to poke ever so slightly against the wash of the elder elf’s abdomen. Though his thoughts strayed to the salacious at his love’s unexpected quickening, Ivrin reminded himself of how delicately he must proceed with one still formally possessed of his virginity, so newly versed in physical love. He dampened down his own wanting flint, instead refocused on coddling his needful and somewhat flustered wolf cub. 

“Forgive my boldness,” Ciryon began, seeming to summon the courage to speak from deep within. “But you were… *are*… s-so beautiful.” At Ivrin’s smirk of surprise, for he was mightily stunned by such a pronouncement, Ciryon peeled back the covers as if to prove his argument right. The temperature of the bedchamber was yet comfortable enough to keep them warm, embers in the black hearth still emanated a gentle heat. Though the occasional quiver of lip sibilated his ‘s’-sounds, Ciryon manfully reined in his galloping heart and elegiacly extolled the virtues of his beloved’s sinuous frame. “I had thought but to kiss you into wakefulness, as you had been so poorly upon your return, but I grazed by a crease of such babe-like softness on your neck that I could not rightly… elsewhere, your skin is stretched taught by muscle, of salt-sprayed roughness that in itself is quite… provoking. I became captivated by the various textures about your neck, chest, arms. I suddenly could not even consider properly rousing you without a thorough exploration… Can you not see? Then I spied your rippling stomach, packed in with muscle, then back to the slender cuts of meat on your chest, crowned by…” Eyes of liquid obsidian lit on his budding nipples anew, his breath caught at their near-lecherous look. “You would have had to bear through my fumblings… I thought only to try out, to taste… but I became… ravenous.” 

With Ciryon suitably distracted by his flaring arousal, Ivrin took his own chance to admire the darkling elf’s lithe, but elegantly proportioned, frame, as well as the tight-wrung engorgement that sprouted from his nethers. The bulbous, crimson shaft was as opposed to lithe and elegant as could be; Ivrin was instantly consumed by a desire entirely his own. Ciryon’s groping questions would have to be deferred. Suddenly, there was an all too grating hunger to be fed. 

Ivrin stroked his fingertips, back and forth, over Ciryon’s own seed-slick navel, daring the purpling erection to point upwards, to swell to full, potent bloom. 

“Yet you ate unbidden,” he rasped throatily to his innocent one. “Touched where you were not invited. Outright mauled with teeth and tongue what was but lazing in repose. Though I applaud your gall, I must, for my own honor, take some little compensation.” 

When Ivrin thumbed the bell-head of his shaft and swiped away the first pearl of his essence, Ciryon caught his already fitful breath. His eyes went round as ebony moons, however, when the mired thumb was pressed into Ivrin’s mouth, thoroughly cleaned of its cream, then extricated with deliberate, demolishing slowness. His own hand instinctively snuck down to palm himself, his need pulsing, violent in the face of such gorgeous debauchery, but Ivrin batted it away. He petted the florid shaft with long, languid strokes, the seismic reverberations shaking through his sprightly wolf cub, who was by now gasping with need. 

Lust, Ciryon was discovering of himself, specifically the rapacious need Ivrin’s most commanding person inspired in him, could entirely and emphatically overtake his typically shrewd mind; indeed, he willed it to do so for the sake of experience. When Ivrin saucily patted the space beside their pillows and motioned for him to sit up against the headboard, thereby bluntly exposing both his nakedness and his fierce arousal, he did so unthinkingly, unquestioning, for he knew his love thought only of his betterment, of his immense satisfaction. After their earlier, startlingly intense experience, he was only too eager to trust in Ivrin, to let the older elf guide him into pleasure both unsuspected and mutually fulfilling. His legs splayed apart and his hands fisting the sheets, Ciryon waited, panting through a broiling sweat, for what smoldering act would follow. 

With starving eyes, Ivrin outright gawked at the singeing spear of his erection. Stalking like a panther over his lap, he laved a rough, ready tongue from base to dripping tip, the sheathes of his hair scraping like raw hide over sensitive inner thighs. Turning playful, he licked and flicked at the slick head, then suckled the veined length with alacrity, consciously building a sure, sensual rhythm. Even the heavy scent of the darkling elf’s groin was pure as a snowfall, his steaming sweat like morning dew. Ivrin gorged himself on his innocence, relishing every last moment of his immaculate rendering, before his teaching, his taking marked him forever. A soft tug on his tender sacs kept him stiff and wanting, allowed him to suck with doubled fervor, as Ciryon writhed in ecstatic abandon. Though his wildling cries only faintly penetrated the palms clamped over his ears and the fingers nearly embedded in his skull, Ivrin felt the pulse of his pleasure with every lap of his manic tongue, every hollowing of his cheeks and every skilled contraction of his throat. 

Another swift, maddening tug to stave him from completion and Ciryon was pummeling the bed with his heels, baying like the wanton wolf cub he was. Incensed by the rabid carnality of the act, he pawed and scratched at Ivrin’s shoulders, until his tormentor released his held sides and finally allowed him to thrust. Not wanting to spare a scrap of sensation, Ciryon plunged true with each surge of his hips, as Ivrin all but swallowed him whole. 

With a spine-wringing quake, he spent viciously. 

Ivrin reverently milked him through chokes, coughs, and sobs, savoring every salty spurt. Ciryon tasted, as expected, like the sea-spray in northland coves, like the dense brume over deep-water ocean. Like every place he loved to linger, whether above deck or perched high in the crow’s nest. Ivrin told him this, as he nested them back into a secure, comforting embrace, for Ciryon was still weeping some. 

“I never d-dreamed,” he sputtered, his emotions in such disarray that he could not retreat to the sanctuary of his inner shell. He shook as on that first night in Gondolen, like a slip of willow leaf in a gale, such that Ivrin feared he may have completely shattered that safe-haven, that formerly unbreakable shell. “S-scorching… like a funeral pyre, like a loss, but rejuvenating also… gilded and g-golden…everything light, everything hot, all consumed by… by your love…” 

“Aye, melethen,” he soothingly whispered. “By that alone, was I moved to pleasure you.” 

“I felt… whole,” Ciryon yet struggled to vent, though Ivrin knew implicitly how their loving had affected him. “Such… completion. In that instant, I surged and… we were one.” 

“I knew your pleasure, also,” Ivrin confirmed, beginning to rock him gently. “I was undone.” 

As suddenly as the spell came on, however, his ever-curious wolf cub brushed away his tears and crawled up to face him, a sharp brow peaked in inquisition. 

“Did you… release?” Ciryon asked directly, no longer so shy about such intimate subject matter after their own shared intimacy. 

“Quite explosively,” Ivrin responded with bemusement, a flick of his eyes indicating the rather flaccid evidence of his completion. 

“But you…?” Ciryon was both puzzled and unable to formulate a proper question, dizzy-minded as he still was from his own rapture. “There was no… stimulation.” 

Ivrin smirked rakishly, then replied: “There was perhaps no direct stimulation, but I seem to recall – through the haze of remembrance – that I was sucking rather ardently on a stiff, savory shaft.“

A giddy-mouthed kiss was snatched from him, before Ciryon queried: “One may be sundered merely by… by the pleasuring of another?” 

“With enough lascivious suggestion, a potent situation, and the proper application of innuedo,” Ivrin expounded, rather enticed by the bawdiness of their conversation. “One may be sundered by the mere whispering of a lover into the tiny hollow of one’s ear.” 

“*By Elbereth*,” Ciryon marveled, his features courting a sly look for one so newly versed in pleasuring. “Will you teach me of these wanton ways, melethen?” 

“I pray nightly that no other will ever dare,” Ivrin swore, indulging in a rather distracting kiss of his own. 

By the time they eased off, Ciryon’s following question was at the ready. His bashfulness, however, reared itself anew. 

“Ivrin… I know tis ungracious to pry,” he ventured hesitantly. “But might I know… might you in benevolence tell me… of… of your previous lovers?” 

In truth, Ivrin had expected the question much earlier, inveigled in the ink of a correspondence or hastily murmured back in the hold of his ship. He had long been prepared for full disclosure, as he owed his beloved no less and felt, at times, as if even his brief, learning-prompted experiences had been traitorous to his long-simmering regard for the then-minor Ciryon. The moment come, he did not shy from the question, but shifted them to their sides and launched into the full tale. 

“How could I have quarrel with such a query?” Ivrin assured him. “Tis your right as my beloved and the one I cherish to know of my past. My question is… how much detail can you bear?” 

“Every detail you feel is necessary,” Ciryon stated, with his renown sagacity. “I would, as you say… know the whole of it.” 

“Some may surprise,” Ivrin warned him, with an impish smile. “Indeed, in ways you cannot predict, though as one enchanted with storytelling, I will not now give the game away.” With a wry chuckle, he ordered his thoughts, then began. “In truth, there have been but three to school me in ways of love, though I did not heartily love one among them. They were, in my mind, tutors; I sought to learn only to teach the one I would love – your very self, melethen. From the dawn of my forty-second year, I knew… that I held you in unique regard. In short time, I came to know that feeling as love. You were, however, nowhere close to returning such an affection. Indeed, by the time of my majority rites, you had not yet an inkling of such a thing, nor I of your inclinations towards ellon, so I rightly sought out an elder to initiate me. He was… what can I say? He was fair enough, kind, patient, and very gentle. I only lay with him the once… I realized, too late, that he was not entirely to my liking, but I was innocent myself and all too responsive to *any* stimulus, so we fared well. I learnt enough to try again with one more suitable and comely, but this was not to be until I was employed on my ship. In the meantime… you came to ripeness before my very eyes, and I was ravaged with want for you. That quiet, rainy day in the library, when you first evidenced desire for me and were overcome with shame…” 

“You knew!” Ciryon exclaimed, blushing a fierce rose at the memory of his embarrassment. “You *saw*…”

“One could not fail to remark such a thing, lirimaer,” Ivrin noted sympathetically. “Your flustering was so pretty, I was nearly shamed myself. When you ran, I knew naught but heartache could come from such an early revelation of my desires. We both required some time apart – you to grow and I to learn how to be a proper mate – before I could dare attempt to win you. Success in that endeavor was far from assured, even when I found you again in Gondolen. Adolescent stirrings are just that; one might react to a gull passing overhead, a pinky sunset, or a lover with equal fervor. I could only hope that… my prayers would be heard.” 

“To think that I doubted your regard,” Ciryon mused, surprised indeed at his recounting. 

“Never doubt it again,” Ivrin underlined, unable to keep from caressing his beloved one, thoroughly and lengthily. Ciryon, however, would not be deterred, even from such involving affections. He pressed him onward. “Once away, I attempted abstinence, so sorrowed was I by our separation and so invigorated by adventure. In the course of those adventures, however, I came to be flattered by an elf or two, and eventually decided that neither of us would be well served by my own inexperience, when the time came. So I… I found one of gentility and grace, rare among seafaring folk, and trysted with him for a spell. He taught me well of lust and my body came to lust quite madly for him. After a month or so, however, lust gave way to complacency, as there was naught to fill me but his spurtings. My heart was full of another, so I broke with him.”

“And which other was this?” Ciryon teased, quite pleased that he had such a lasting effect on Ivrin, even before his knowledge of mutual regard. 

“Your very self, my tender one,” Ivrin purred, then quickly sobered, the hard truth of his tale yet to come. “I thought this one exposure would sate me for the duration, as there was some talk of docking in Telperion at the time, but then… I was seized by a lust that would not release me. The fire had not object, I merely wanted – anyone within reason, at any time, in any way. I just wanted satisfaction, that is all. I was still caught in the wave of adolescence. My body now knew of carnal delights and had not yet had its fill. I burned in silent for a six-month, shamed to sickening by these all-too-natural instincts, but finally I could naught but give in. I waited for an elf of uncommon allure, and, on an inland stay in Vinyamar with my parents, I found him. I am not proud of the encounter, nor that he bore a most vivid resemblance to you, beloved, but I… I was not then constant elf you have ever been, Ciryon, I was going mad. We rutted – for it was naught but the most primitive of encounters – every night for a week straight. By the end I was so disgusted with myself, and thankfully sated, that I swore to burn like the fires of Mount Doom itself rather than to suffer such a thing again.” Ivrin scowled at his own pliability, at his ridiculousness. “When I think on how I behaved, how tarnished I am by this past error… I was a fool.” 

“Nay, melethen, you were but a needful, youthful elf,” Ciryon reasoned, with implicit fondness. “You had no surety of my regard, merely knowledge of your own feeling, perhaps never to be returned. That you even thought of me when choosing for your minority, when trysting with a lover of knowledge, who might teach you for our own betterment… I cannot rightly speak of how this moves me. To think that you were planning for our future, caring for me all this time… how can I else but adore you, Ivrin? But cherish you, as a rare and exquisite ocean pearl?” 

“Tis you who are exquisite, lirimaer,” Ivrin murmured, nuzzling their faces close. He found, quite astonishingly, that he could with able facility be entirely roused anew. 

Ciryon also remarked the resurgence of his rather endearing vulnerability. Ivrin’s hardy nature was so often cowed by the emotive aspects of their love, by its newness and its fragility. Twas his charge to succor his beloved, in these brittle time, to solder his resolve and to assure him of their bond’s potential. 

“Yet tis I who would apply my learning to the task of your pleasure, meleth-nin,” Ciryon grinned wolfishly, as he crawled into the dominant position above Ivrin. “Will you allow one of my renown innocence to… demonstrate how keenly I’ve been taught my scarlet lessons?” 

“Please do, my beauty,” Ivrin groaned, as long, luring culls were already being drawn from his perilously exposed neck. 

The languid day had certainly kept its sultry promises.

* * *

One Week Later

His amiable brother Brithor had become so fond of noting these last years, as if the wisdom itself were not applicable to all ages of elven life, that the fever of adolescence was best enjoyed to its fullest and not a whit repressed past the day of majority if one was to survive its agonies intact. That Brithor himself had indulged his own fired loins far before his majority, he had concomitantly argued, did not lessen the validity of the statement itself. Ciryon, while in no place to judge his rightness or erroneousness before, had often dismissed this typically simplistic notion as one of Brithor’s good-natured attempts at placating his forlorn twins. 

At present, however, Ciryon was struck by the recalled pronouncement’s rather glaring profundity. As he demurely sipped his after-dinner tea, he was inconsistently attuned to his fathers’ sprawling conversation with Ivrin, true, but had also nursed a rather robust erection, unabated, for nearly an hour now. In times past, he would have fidgeted and squirmed throughout the entire meal, excused himself but seconds after dessert, and ungraciously loosed the sash of his robes as he rose to better conceal his inexplicable arousal. After a week of spirited bed-play with his beloved, however, he had learnt to temper himself according to the neediness of the situation, gained the confidence to allow his insurgent body to burn through its desires without scurrying away to perform a hasty, guilt-ridden exorcism. Every moment passed in Ivrin’s adored company was somehow provoking to such an excitable young body as his own, not that Ivrin alone was required for such provocation, but this did not mean that he need suffer through further embarrassments when his thoughts turned scarlet, as they inevitably did, and his groin emphatically responded to the near-constant stimulation of Ivrin’s enticing presence beside him. 

As Brithor had so smartly counseled, one could only endure the incessantly lusty aspects of his adolescent condition if said lust was indulged in, preferably with a loving partner, on a regular basis. Indeed, the promise of later evening hours alone with his beloved was perhaps all that presently kept him from sneaking Ivrin’s hand into his breeches and commanding him to stroke wild. Ciryon could not imagine how he would have weathered such sultry and enrapturing desires had Ivrin’s ship not so fortunately capsized. With his every ecstatic cry to the heavens, he had given orgasmic thanks to the Valar above for such blessings, of guided sexual maturation, of a devout, valorous companion, of their hallowed future. 

Not that he had yet experienced the ultimate in physical bliss. Even after the few days necessary for his complete recuperation, Ivrin had further, near indefinitely delayed his taking. Their pre-emptive explorations were too glorious in themselves to proceed with needless haste to the intimacies of full penetration. Why not, Ivrin had reasoned, take the lucky occasion of their sequestering in Tathren and Echoriath’s talan to thoroughly and enthusiastically engage one another in lighter, though smoldering hot, play, thereby evolving quite organically, with heart, mind, and body in uproarious concert, to proper lovemaking. Ciryon had not had a second of lucidity to brook any objection, as Ivrin had embroiled him in an erotic fugue for the entirety of the last seven days, only thinning some when others called on them. 

From that first morning of sensual discovery onward, it had been a golden time for them. By noontime, they had waddled over to the bath to cleanse themselves for their likely afternoon visitors. Elrond, Elrohir, and Legolas had all, indeed, come to check on their wellness – Ivrin’s physiological and Ciryon’s spiritual. They had not, thankfully, tarried long. The elders had no clue that they had already somewhat disobeyed them, so after Elrond’s detailed examination of Ivrin’s progress, they left them to become *reacquainted*. Both Elrohir and Legolas had been nearly burnished with gladness at this fateful turn of events for their sweetest son, vowing to provide any thing necessary to their leisure and extracting a promise of their own for this very dinner. Rumil and Anamir had followed hot on their heels, lingering a bit longer and fretting over their son’s still vivid bruises. Fortunately, Brithor and Rohrith had also poked in at this time, so Ciryon could allow the parents some vital face time with their oft imperiled son. 

The triplets’ stroll by the frozen river had been at times rowdy, affectionate, and heartbreaking. This first had come in the form of Ciryon’s own near unstoppable elation at Ivrin’s momentous return, with teasingly insinuating asides as to how he had already known some deeply pleasurable moments in his arms. Brithor had been more inquiring than Rohrith, as was to be expected, once again imparting his one, wise quip to his brimming brother. The affection was dispersed throughout the conversation, as all three were both proud of their majority and, as ever, heartened by this latest chance at private company. 

Rohrith’s unusually restrained mood, however, could not be overwhelmed by the others’ ebullience forever. With a brother clamped to each side and their strong arms gripped tightly around his waist, he was finally prodded into unburdening himself of the unfolding of the bittersweet events of the previous night. He had, as thought, taken a trusted friend to his bed. He had chosen one who had come up from Gondolen for the occasion of their begetting-day, so there would be no pressure, after a fortnight of further indulgence, to continue their intimacy; the elf in question had been well-informed of Rohrith’s intentions from the start. The act itself had been satisfactory enough to prompt the planning of a future encounters; though Rohrith spoke only in the vaguest of terms of his enjoyment, he would meet with the elf that very night. Indeed, he confided that he, as Ivrin, had woken to pleasuring that very morn, which had them embroiled until the very docking of the barge. 

Yet despite his rather comfy approval of the love-acts he had undertaken to learn, a darkness had festered within him. Rohrith had made no mention of Dioren until explicitly prompted by Brithor, and then had dismissed their exchanges as typical. Though they had been rank with suspicion of his distress, he and Brithor had continued to listen attentively to what details Rohrith had wanted to reveal to them, even as the notion of his slight disingenuousness prickled them through their brotherly bond. When at last, steps from their apartments, he had broken, they had been awash with relief that their third would not suffer through this repression for another pained, yet impassioned night. Even Rohrith’s tears had been brief, conservative, as he had confessed to a gutting hurt that Dioren had not evidenced even the slightest care that he had bedded another, though he knew better than any which way the peredhel’s proclivities turned. Dioren had even been so witless as to congratulate him on the loss of his virginity, though they had been sure the half-elf had not quite phrased his compliment so crudely. Dioren was not a cruel elf; indeed, he was an honorable and gracious friend to their brother. He simply remained oblivious, perhaps strategically so, to Rohrith’s maddening love for him. 

Rohrith had not confided what both Ciryon and Brithor knew only too well; that while all evidence pointed quite glaringly to the contrary, Rohrith still held out some remote bastion of hope that Dioren could be affected by his love, could be won over, could be the other half that would make him whole. After comforting their despondent brother and advising him to take full advantage of the lusty night ahead, Ciryon and Brithor had secreted a silent pact to consult their fathers on this dangerously acute matter. All of their livelihoods would be in severe jeopardy should Rohrith find his consolation only in grief; his bleak mood on such a joyous afternoon only underlined the need for swift, preventative measures. 

Still, even Rohrith was not so heartless as to keep them long from their own sensual adventures. After another round of rather flagrant taunts, Ciryon had escaped up to the talan, where Ivrin – bless his lascivious self – had awaited him by the roaring hearth, laying breathlessly bare over a luxurious pelt of fur. He’d ordered Ciryon to strip – aye, strip! – for him, then had proceeded to map out all the most sensate hollows of his quickening skin. Each gluttonous encounter, in their subsequent, ravenous days of intimate seclusion, had furthered his carnal education, until both had been moved, through the rapture of passionate loving, to their physical and soulful apotheosis. The culmination of these slow-burn pleasures would possibly come that very night, with Ciryon’s elf-making, his incomparable ravishing. However, despite his prolonged virginity, he had already been gifted of an honor beyond compare by his stunning and unpredictable beloved. 

As his thoughts strayed once again from their dinner-table conversation and into the realm of the salacious, Ciryon could not help the soft blush that pinked his cheeks, when he recalled the previous night’s incomparable events. As Ivrin had attempted to read a particularly poignant piece to him, Ciryon had wriggled quite irresistibly in his lap, until the seafarer had no choice but to launch a full out assault on his hopelessly rousing person. Any ardent display of eagerness had always completely unraveled Ivrin, a fact that had soon become amply evident, as they had streaked over to the bed and tumbled recklessly about each other. 

They had been groping giddily about for a long, lazy hour, when Ciryon had wanted to further his ongoing tutelage in the art of oral pleasure. He had sucked Ivrin into a voluble string of curses, pointers, and hoarse groans, when suddenly his beloved had seized him by the shoulders and pried him strangely away. The devastating look in his emerald eyes had been layered with hues of a complex design, vulnerability mixed with reverence, affection mingled with abject longing, worry stained bright by heartfelt trust. Ivrin had named him his beauty, his succor, his melethron, then had asked for a thing so astonishing, Ciryon had broken their kiss to gape at him. 

Ivrin had wanted to give himself to him. 

Twas thus that Ciryon had undertaken the most exquisite adventure of his young eternity. He had known his beloved uniquely, worshipped him from within and steered him to beatific completion. He had watched their shared ecstasy overcome him, wring him, wreck him, had mastered his undoing even as he had raged like a pyre himself. He had awed his lover with his daring and his care, had basked with him in the all-too-fleeting oneness of their soul flames. Ciryon was no less than transformed by the incomparable experienced, finally understanding the power he had within himself, to love Ivrin, to someday be his mate. They had not slept until the dawn, but laid hushly together, stroking and petting, whispering tipsy nothings, swollen troths. 

He had, at last, come of age. 

This night, Ciryon would know what it is to be opened to another, to surge and to sigh, to be the live receptacle, the very crucible where their passion is fired. Though of pensive visage before their supper table, he was outright rabid with anticipation, their frolics the previous night having abolished his fears and illuminated him as to the intricacies of his taking. He would know of the pleasure Ivrin had experienced so emphatically, feel the hot essence of his love within him. Twas little wonder his tumescence pronged so flagrantly up between his thighs, when there was the threat of Ivrin’s tongue to entice him…

At last, Legolas spied his slightest of frowns as their conversation turned down yet another fork in its meandering road. Both his fathers had glowed with pride for the length of their supper, Ciryon sensed that before their bedazzled eyes, they were already bound. Ivrin was dear to them as one of their own precocious brood; the prospect of his being a son of theirs in binding was too blinding for them to see, as Ciryon did in ponderous moments, the future outstretched before them: his treacherous journeys afar, his prolonged absences, and the uncertainties of his shipbuilding aspirations. Though Ciryon was not yet quite ready to settle down, he did not doubt such a day would come soon enough after his second majority, but the longing would even then be far from being appeased. With his cunning, connected family as champion to his cause and of their union, perhaps some time could be saved them, but he would not build the foundation of their love on false hopes. 

He would face the trials ahead as never before, in the ample, explicit knowledge of Ivrin’s undying love. 

Pointed glances were exchanged. The table, after the fondest of well-wishes, was excused. 

Barely steps past the threshold of their borrowed talan, Ivrin slammed him against the bolted door and tongued his lips apart. His kiss was silken, spiced with wine, his mouth sultry hot. Ivrin spared his beloved a look of effluent tenderness, before luring him to their bed. 

To the smoldering accomplishment of his majority rites. 

* * *

Spring, Yen 733, Fourth Age

Her immaculate serenity, the grand and gracious river Sirion, who with her blithe and giddy flow bisected the land south of Taniquetil, was twinned to a sprightly, rapid-speckled river, the sly Silpion. These sisterly tributaries both spurt forth into the sage ocean from the same gaping mouth. Silpion, as befitting her lively character, cascaded into the sea from a high-born cliffside, while her more elegant sister simply glided through an archway carved by nature’s force into the base of sedimentary rock. Not to be outdone by her twin’s subtle graces, Silpion rained her quite voluminous waters down before the archway, so sailors had to segue through her falls before being given leave to sail Sirion’s more steadying waters. 

Both sisters snaked their way down to the vale of Telperion. The clever elves that reside there were not satisfied by a measly beacon stationed atop the archway, by the thunderous falls, to ward off intruders and to ease the way of the trade ships. Hidden behind the rock cliff was a slope of incomparable lushness, with mossy shelves just begging to berth houses of harmonious elven craft, which slid into a slender, fertile valley. The seaside cliff was sheer, but also stepped with bracken shelves. The beach was dense with shale, perfect for a small town. A builder of considerable renown came courting this rather flattering landscape, upon which he constructed a colony as diverse, yet complimentary, as its twin rivers. 

The ocean view now supported white stone villas, above a sprawling port of docks, inns, and shipyards, where only the finest wrights were invited into residence. Unlike the ancient port of Tirion, this town was secured by Telperion’s own guard; its Lord a valorous, peaceful elf who valued the sanctity of his seaside people and his inland kin, above all. This laurelled elf made his home on the fecund slope behind, where structures as gabled and refined as those of the hallowed Rivendell loomed above the river valley. 

The resemblance to this noble house was well intended by its architect, who blessed his own manse a homely house and the colony entire, in honor of his own descendant line, Imladros. 

Having need of a scribe, secretary, and sometime advisor to sift through the myriad piles of solicitations that daily landed on his study desk from places near and far, as well as to keep up vital correspondence with the High Council of Telperion, the Lord of Imladros, never one to take up the quill when a bow was at hand, had engaged one exceptionally dear to his heart and one who he trusted implicitly with his secret affairs: his younger brother. This studious one oddly preferred the blanched seaside villas to the mansions of the dulcet slope, as the constant, effervescent scent of the ocean reminded him of his beloved; by these late years a shipbuilder of considerable repute, oft commissioned by the elders of Tirion, Vinyamar, Gondolen, and even northern Laurelin to add to their fleets. 

By residing so close to the primordial sea, the seneschal’s beloved need not travel the half-day’s journey inland to meet with his dearest one, which often prompted him to stop, unscheduled, for a night in transit, when he did not have time enough to stay a longer while. Though fleeting, these unexpected nights buoyed the seneschal’s spirit such that he could oft be fortified for a six-month entire, a considerable length of heartfulness, as the shipwright’s commissions regularly lasted for spans of seven years or more. 

On just such a stolen eve, as the rosy aura of sunset faded behind the cliffside and a sparkling twilight swept over the sea stretched out before them, the two were spooned together, though cocooned in a cashmere blanket, on the floor of the villa’s highest balcony. The shipwright had surprised the seneschal there early that afternoon and they had tumbled immediately into loving, not caring whether the entire town heard their rapturous cries. 

Ivrin Rumilion’s latest commission had lasted close to seventeen years, his longest absence yet. 

Ciryon Elrohirion, seneschal to the Lord of Imladros, presently waged a rather riotous battle against his more covetous instincts, to twine his beloved to him without care for the fragile cage of his ribs, such was his need to keep him home. If the villa could be said to indeed be Ivrin’s home, as he closeted only his most formal garments here and its chests held not the merest of his possessions. Though he would forever have his love, Ciryon did not have his binding pledge; he feared, after nearly five hundred years, they may never be truly mated. The fury of their passion momentarily sated and Ivrin dosing heavily in his arms - his handsomeness as stunning as the day they first lay together - he took this opportunity to return to the reflection he had been engaged in when his heart had so suddenly stepped through the balcony door. 

Ciryon was not fool enough to believe he could keep Ivrin from the sea. Even as he now slept, he faced the moist breeze that billowed up from the shoals, was lulled by the break of waves over the dockyards as much as by the soft of his lover’s body behind him. He was most alive when testing the latest testament to his masterly craftsmanship on a choppy ocean, though Ciryon did not doubt that the constancy of his devotion was what allowed Ivrin to relish such liberating moments. That, in essence, was the rub. Without their love as inspiration, he could not create; the very element of their relationship nurtured his artistic drive to ever greater heights. Yet without his distant commissions, he had no outlet for his creativity; an inland vale such as Telperion only required so many ships, and these of routine design. Ivrin thrived on his interactions with the various people that made up their elvish culture, the seafaring life was ingrained in his very blood. His peace was there, as well as an ample portion of his heart. 

When he left, Ciryon’s went almost entirely with him. 

This last expansive absence had been excruciating for him. The correspondence was as relentless as ever, but even his most scorching letters were no suitable substitute for the roguish elf he now spooned so tenderly to. When the proposed decade had strung out to fifteen anguished years apart, Ciryon had gone poorly. One day Tathren had remarked he had not seen a smile from him in almost a month, his movements had grown increasingly sluggish and his handwriting sloppy. He grew winded by merely crossing over the falls in his daily journey to the First Homely House of Aman, to say nothing of his regular noontime naps. His normally buttery complexion was waxen, his locks of hair frayed; what would Ivrin think of him, were he to suddenly return? But he would not return, Ciryon had inwardly bemoaned, not for the foreseeable future. Ciryon had crawled into his bed that night and not risen by his own accord for another three turns of the moon, though the bed itself, as well as its despondent occupant, had been transported back to Telperion, to the estate of his wise grandsire. He had recovered eventually, once his twins had incited him to weep with an uncommon violence, but all in his family knew it had been a close thing. 

Ivrin knew naught of this, as sworn to by overly concerned elders, though the scribe knew all-too-well how strongly founded their fears truly were and how close he’d come to fading. Some change in the tenacity or in the routine of their relationship was imperative, if not for love alone than for his own survival. 

He had considered this, and a great deal more, that very afternoon upon his blustery balcony. Though he had been the first of his siblings to find love – and this from infancy – he alone remained unbound. Even Brithor’s famously roving eye had finally been permanently fixed on a shepherdess from the outskirts of Vinyamar, their first daughter already peeking into her tenth year and their second born not a month ago. While he presently had no wish to rear a child of his own, none could say what the coming age might bring. Whispers had already begun to waft over the ocean that the fourth age of men would pass to legend in a century or so, the ebb of the cultural tide leased and flowing again. He himself was dutifully involved in composing a companion volume to Erestor’s History of the Elven People during the fourth age, which recounted the romantic exploits of the renown triplet grandsons of Elrond. Yet his own tale, so compelling at the outset, had no foreseeable end to hearten the reader, as he and Ivrin seemed content to drift along together, committed in word but not in deed. Ships anchored in the same harbor, but ever stocked to sail. 

This miserable state, *his* misery, would end this very night; or if not entirely end, then veer inland, towards a lake, a pond, or perhaps even the rapids, but ever towards resolution. 

Else his sanity would be dashed upon the rocks. 

As he drank in the briny scent of sleek mahogany hair, he drew fortitude from the rope-hewn body twined so snugly with his. Though light-lidded slumber kept those jewel eyes abed, he’d earlier been entranced by their decadent gleam, as they raked so greedily over him. Yet bold as Ivrin was in sexual overture and brazen in their deliberate baring, he loved nothing more than to be enslaved by passion, his vulnerability mined for prized sensual ore. Aflame with cruel, culling desire, he would beg Ciryon to claim him, as if he would take whatever treasure he could; by the brimful, if necessary. Whether trenched into the core of him or in the soft of ecstasy’s wake, twas the only time Ciryon ever felt Ivrin was wholly and completely his, that only he could delve for such gorgeous yield into this sacred part of him. He came to crave this way of theirs; the first, pleading look in those emerald eyes, the supplicant lavishing of tongue on his famished engorgement, hips writhing hysterically in his lap and taut buttocks rubbing manically against his member. How Ivrin would open to him, in gaze, heart, and splayed body, seeming the most delicate skeleton waiting to be fleshed out by his love. 

He purred into Ivrin’s love-bitten neck at the memory, stiffening anew. His slowly-swelling shaft was yet pillowed between those two, plump buttocks, but a slight maneuver would sheathe him. Ivrin’s prone form showed every sign of willingness, from his pursed, rosy lips to his skipping breaths to his own kindling erection. Ciryon knew well how he could torment him into wakefulness with nips and pinches, squeezes and licks, laps, laves, and wispy tickles, but he staved off. His body would be sated soon enough. 

Twas his heart that was yet dissatisfied. 

Instead of a more salacious move, he shifted back so that he could reach that silken mane of mahogany hair. As he brushed long, lazy strokes through its loose waves, Ciryon began to sing. The low, breathy song was his own composition, part chantey, part lullaby, every word meant for the one most beloved to him. Lured by the haunting strain of his voice, Ivrin rolled back towards him, to gaze with eyes nearly ready to capsize at this tender vision of his one. A kiss could not be more intimate, their coupling more piercing, than this devastating piece. He was entirely breathtaken. 

“Beautiful,” Ivrin exhaled, as the last refrain wafted out to sea. “But so lonely, melethen, so bereft of hope…” 

“I was quite bereft these last years,” Ciryon confessed, bashfully. “It is true enough that I enjoy my solitude, but that is not to mean I wish to be… forever alone.” 

“My prolonged absence gave you this fear?” Ivrin asked softly, though prepared to endure the tough consequences of his choice. He had suspected he would receive considerable rebuke upon his return, though he was glad enough to feel its slap. He had not wanted to be so long away, which Ciryon knew well enough, and had berated himself for being so completely netted in the impossible situation many times over. “If I am gone, melethen, tis but to ply my trade.”

“Yet here there is now a port city,” Ciryon pointed out, but without rancor. “Below the rail a shipyard. But even if you are based here, tis in your very blood to wander.”

“I will always return,” Ivrin heartily assured him.

“And you will always go again!” Ciryon retorted, but cursed himself for the force of it the instant after. He took a long, cleansing breath, then met Ivrin with honest eyes. “With every farewell, my flame dims some. If there is no ever-constant source to re-ignite it, I will be, before long… snuffed out. When I received your black letter, to say your task was entirely sundered by storm and had to be redone… I nearly was.” 

“You took ill?” Ivrin demanded, aghast. “*Why* did you not summon me home?” 

“Is this your home?” Ciryon asked in response. “You seem to prefer the hull of a ship to a berth in my cleaving heart.” 

“I prefer no such place to where I thought I ever was,” Ivrin insisted, with a fervor and flint few so tenderhearted as Ciryon could deny. “Kept safe and strong within you, melethron-nin.” 

“I am strong enough,” Ciryon explained, resting a flush forehead to his own. “But I am no colossus. I cannot stay vigilant when you are so far gone, for so long. I could not weather another stretch of fifteen years. I need you close, Ivrin. I need to feel your heart near.” 

“Forgive me,” Ivrin pleaded with him, relieved to finally be able to gather him up. “I will not take another commission until the turn of the next century. Imladros suits me excellently well, but nothing so much as its chief advisor’s heart. I am yours, melethen. I would do anything… I will build my shop here, be anchored to your bed… and perhaps you yourself might accompany me on future journeys?”

“Perhaps,” Ciryon hushly agreed, himself gathering up his courage for his next suggestion. “But not merely as your beloved.” He softed a kiss over Ivrin’s plush lips, captured his bewildered gaze. “I would be your mate.” 

“How now?” Ivrin blinked once, his face turned sheer and stony as the finest cut of ivory. 

“Bind with me, melethron,” Ciryon proposed, almost giddy with the tension. “I would be one with you. Love you as my own, eternally. I could not bear, could not survive any other outcome to our tale. I must have you, or… or be lost…” 

Ciryon could barely speak his last, when a kiss of snarling vigor was pounded to his lips. Summarily flipped back onto the cashmere blanket, a rabid elf assaulted his every sense, pillaging his clefts, planes, and hollows, plundering his mouth, wrenching his legs apart with an impassioned cry of victory, and clamping his hot-stoked skin down over him. 

“Ever have you had me,” Ivrin panted, as he struggled to slick himself with their preemptory spurts. “If I wander free, tis at your allowance; if I am renown for craftsmanship, then ever am I lit by the transcendent aura of your love. I am naught, if you are lost, melethen. I am of your making; I move by your circadian rhythms and sing, beloved, at your command. I am the very matter of your heart.” Ivrin held fast against a climactic burst, nearly undone by the force of his feeling. “I will most surely be your mate. For eternity, Ciryon-nin.”

Floating somewhere beyond elation at his blessed vow, Ciryon bleat out his own adoring troths in turn and gave all, in body, heart, and love, to his newly betrothed. 

End of Ciryon’s Tale


	7. Rohrith’s Tale, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: This is a companion piece to Of Elbereth’s Bounty, which takes place between the action of the final chapter (16) and the epilogue, set centuries in the future. Some of the characters from OEB deserved to have their own stories wrapped up outside of the actual narrative of that tale. This particular tale, along with Ciryon’s Tale, concern the majority rites of two of Tathren’s triplet brothers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimers: Characters belong to that wily old wizard himself, Tolkien the Wise, the granddad of all 20th century fantasy lit. I serve at the pleasure of his estate and aim not for profit.   
> Author’s Note: While I think parts of this story can be understood on their own, I think it better to read the whole cycle, or at least Of Elbereth’s Bounty, to completely understand the world I’ve created and the character histories. The series is as follows: Part One is ‘In Earendil’s Light’, Part Two is ‘Under the Elen’, and the vastly larger Part Three is ‘Of Elbereth’s Bounty’.   
> Feedback: Would be delightful.   
> Dedication: To Eresse, as always.

Rohrith’s Tale – Part 1

 

Spring, Year 157, Fourth Age

With a pace even the fleetest of hares would envy, the elfling bounded through the glade, skipping over arching tree roots, leaping over fallen logs, and swinging himself from low-hanging boughs. As he gamely hopped across a giggling brook atop a trail of surfaced stones, he counted out each in Quenya – he had just that morning learnt to count in the more formal elven tongue – hoping to impress the pair of twin elves that followed him in leisurely stride. 

“Rohrith!” Elrohir called out, bemusement implicit in his tone. “Do not stray too far, ioneth, else the fog may swallow you up.” 

With an obedient nod, the elfling shot through the slick blades of the long grass towards a nearby rock, almost three times his considerably diminutive size. He grappled up the moist, mossy edge, his fingers splattering the tiny pools of dew collected on the ridges, then hoisted himself, with a trill of triumph, atop the damp plateau. He carefully lolled his muddy boots over the ledge and gathered his cloak around him, the crisp air of new spring chilling the sheen of sweat his exertions had wrought. 

With a grin as wide as a halved melon, he waited for his father and his uncle to catch up, knowing that when they did he would be plucked from atop the rock by his Ada-Dan, tossed jovially between them awhile, until his Ada-Hir would swing him back onto his shoulders, to keep him from running off again. Rohrith was yet uncertain if they had figured out that he sprinted so far ahead just to be so jostled about and to cling so tightly to his Ada-Hir, but as they were two of the wisest and wiliest elves he knew, he did not doubt they had extended knowledge of his ruses. As his grandsire was so fond of saying, his twin sons had been, in their day, far more daunting to rear than even he and his two brothers combined. 

Once he had been quite skillfully thrown about and was perched snugly against his father’s back, he could not help but be bit again by his own teething sense of curiosity. His esteemed Ada-Hir was teaching a lesson to one of the older classes at Lord Erestor’s school today and had invited him to accompany him, all on his own! He was unsure why Ada-Hir thought he could learn the same things as the elder elflings, as Rohrith and his brothers had just started their own private tutorials the year before in anticipation of their first official semester next fall, but he was only too curious about such an advanced experience and all too eager to befriend some of the older children. He had seen so many interesting elves when Ada-Las brought him to the training fields, how he longed to know them all!

Rohrith only realized he had been speaking aloud, when Ada-Dan commented that he was sure even the older elflings would be glad to know such a lively elf as he. Ada-Hir seconded that as soon as they heard his delightful chatter, they would be enthralled, but also cautioned that if Rohrith ever felt uncomfortable, that he was to simply excuse himself politely and return to his father’s side. Rohrith could not truly understand why he should feel uncomfortable in the presence of other elflings, they were surely just as eager to make friends as he? His father and uncle took on that funny look of theirs, the secret one that meant they were speaking through their twinly bond. Rohrith understood this, for he and his brothers could do the same thing, but he could not make out what these two twins were saying. Undaunted, he launched a volley of questions at them, as he was most intent on learning all he could about the class of his older peers before meeting them in person. One should always prepare oneself for an atypical situation, that is what Ada-Las taught them about battle and this, he had found, could also be readily applied to inter-elven communication. As usual, his guardians answered explicitly and thoughtfully, which was one of the things he admired most about them and sought to emulate in his own right. 

Before he had even half completed his rather interminable list of questions, they had arrived at the school. Ada-Hir eased him down from his perch, laying an arm over his shoulders in silent indication that he should stay close, for the time being. The class was having its early recreation period. Small groups of friends were lazing about the open courtyard, under the ring of rowan trees, frolicking and jesting as only familiars do. Though brimming with the desire to dash off to introduce himself, he took Ada-Hir’s stoic advice and meticulously observed them; after, of course, bidding an affectionate farewell to his Ada-Dan, who had his own class of junior swordsmen waiting. Rohrith wished he could attend that session, as well, but the chance to be in on a philosophy and debate seminar was a much rarer pleasure. 

The adolescent elflings about were not so different from his own peers. He could tell right away that they were sectioned off by common interest: the archers in one corner, always with their quivers slung over their backs, the future guardsmen heckling them in another; some tradesmen gathered around the gurgling fountain, while the hardcore intellects were crouched beneath the furthest, canopy-like tree, already vetting out the minor points of that day’s prospective lesson. Each of these companies had its lures, as he was friend to all; indeed, he fidgeted quite hopelessly in place, raring to break into their circles and command their singular attention. 

It was then that he remarked a lone elf, sequestered in a sunless nook by the far gate, fiddling with a fallen leaf while keeping his eyes studiously down. None of the others even spared the quiet elf a passing glance, as if that area of the courtyard was forbidden to them. As some frivolous disagreement broke between two of the groups, an argument flared up, but even as his classmates fought around him, the sullen elf did not even look up and they in turn paid him no heed. Confronted, for the first time, by such unconscionable behavior, Rohrith took time to examine the elf further, theorizing that there might be something different about him, something strange to these others. 

He found nothing particularly out of the ordinary. The elf was of Sindar descent, for certes, perhaps not as lithe as some of his brethren, but he made up for his almost mannish frame with his spectral coloring. His hair was the white-gold of starshine, his skin immaculate; even in his shadowy enclave, he shone like a bleached winter sun. He reminded Rohrith of his Sinda grandmother, the ethereal Laurelith, who so doted upon her triplets that she was known, even among the brothers, to gluttonously spoil them. When at last the inquisitive elfling got but the briefest glance of his eyes, he found them the misty blue of ocean brume, mysterious and unyielding. The elf was otherworldly, to be sure, but bedazzlingly so; Rohrith immediately wanted to unravel all his apparently plentiful secrets. 

With this in mind, he tugged on his Ada-Hir’s breeches, until proper notice was taken of him. 

“Ada, who is that elf, there?” Rohrith asked with typically adamancy, his onyx eyes still fixed on the lonely one. “Why is he alone? Why do the others keep from him? They do not even seem to see him at all!” 

Elrohir sighed, long and heavy, wondering how to impart such complexities to his yet innocent, wholly accepting child. 

“That is Dioren,” Elrohir gently explained to him, choosing his words with utmost care. He was uncertain how much to reveal of Dioren’s unique and peculiar condition, how much one of Rohrith’s yet tender years might comprehend of such things. “He is… a very special young elf.” 

“Does he not like to play?” Rohrith questioned more intently, his quicksilver mind darting over each and every possibility known to one of his age. 

“He likes playing very well,” Elrohir replied. “But he is… he has been sick for some time. Your grandsire is working with him, trying to heal him, but it will take many years yet. The others do not understand this. His sickness sometimes makes him seem absent, or even spelled, and this scares them. But I have spent some time with him in close counsel, and he is very sweet. So sweet, in fact, that he does not press them to allow his company, but stays away.” 

“Silly elves!” Rohrith spat, disgusted by such behavior, especially from those said to be older and smarter than he. “Do they not know that he needs friends even more than most?” 

Before Elrohir could elaborate on the nature of the condition, his compassionate son was off, having found yet another weary soul to champion. Truly, his Rohrith was a force all his own. With a slim but proud smile, Elrohir watched his brash little gallant storm across the courtyard, stand in the sun above poor, astounded Dioren, and offer his tiny hand in greeting. Before long, Rohrith had settled himself in close quarters with the still-gaping adolescent, babbling on about all and sundry, until he had hit upon what topics would readily entertain him. 

If Elrohir had known, at the time, what would come of their startling friendship, he may have held his son back a few moments longer. 

* * *

Spring, Year 260, Fourth Age

“It has begun, Ada,” Elrohir pronounced ominously, as he paced about the high terrace of the Lord’s private residence, tossing pained glances at the tragic scene below. 

The peredhil foundling Dioren had, in one of his all-too-frequent fugues, rode his horse off a cliff. 

The elf had been sentient enough to throw himself from his steed moments before he shot over the sheer face; his horse, spooked by his rider’s strange behavior, had not been so fortunate. Dioren, as usual, did not recall a second of the incident in question, nor what had incited him to so frighten his steed, yet he was by now lucid enough to suffer the devastating consequences, as he did presently and had so many times before. That he had adored his stallion, had raised him from birth, only amplified his self-revulsion, though few elves would hold from berating themselves with a torrent of scathing abuses for even the accidental slaying of a steed in battle. Dioren was, by now, entirely despondent with grief. He cowered, dolorous, in the thick branches of his favorite elm, fortuitously interred in the gardens of the Lord’s estate, so that Elrond could observe him even as he abjectly refused to descend from its boughs or to receive even the barest touch of comfort. 

Dioren would wait, as ever, for the only one who could truly console him. 

Though nearly grown to full maturity, there was something tirelessly endearing about Dioren, such that the keenest minds in Telperion were currently gathered on his terrace to puzzle out a solution to his woes. Elrond monitored the pinched faces and furrowed brows around him for precious insight into their perspectives, though these he would learn soon enough. While Elrohir, clearly rattled by this worst of calamities thus far, tread a ditch into his floor tiles with his furious pacing, Elladan was entirely opposite in demeanor (both of the twins taking on, oddly, the opposite of their usual reactions). In this, he was support personified, to any and every elder who might require it, but most effectively to Glorfindel, who glowered restlessly at his side. They waited upon Legolas, who had gone to fetch Luinaelin, and Erestor, who could not quite delay another dearly babe’s birthing to attend even a gathering of such import. 

There had been many such informal councils since Dioren’s advent in their fair vale; Elrond estimated there would be many more, until his peredhil majority finally settled him in his own skin. 

Or so they collectively hoped. 

Dioren was, by the Lord’s account, the most extraordinary elf he’d ever sought to heal. Born to a Dorian mother and human father, Dioren barely outlived his sire by a decade. He was slain in the prime of adolescence just two years short of his majority, sent to Mandos before his elven fea had fully taken form, before any thought of choice could be made. As he was but an elfling at the time of his death, he could only be reborn to his mother, but as he was also peredhil, his father’s spirit could not be summoned back by the Valar to sire him anew. He had lingered, half-grown, in the Halls of Awaiting for over a millennia, until the Shadow’s fall and the first age of peace had precipitated his mother to seek out another human lover. She smartly chose a descendant of Dioren’s father’s line, thus allowing her son to be reborn. Resident of Ithilien under Luinaelin’s rule, the spooky child was beset by spells, fits, and long periods of catatonia. Such a harrowing trial was his early rearing that his mother subsequently faded, from the strain, from the death of her second lover, and from the knowing that she had plagued her child with the haunting of his own, infantile spirit. Luinaelin and his goodly wife took pity on the poor, abandoned elfling, adopting him as one of their own. Once arrived in Telperion, they presented the matter to Elrond, who had devoted himself to the child’s safe-keeping, to remedying these rarest of ailments. 

The trouble was such as even the master healer had never encountered before. Dioren’s new hora did not exactly accommodate his earlier fea, for the seed that made him was not entirely the same as his previous incarnation. The Valar had fashioned him new characteristics to fill in the older, unformed soul, which struggled within him to meld. Throughout his childhood and even after both his elven majorities, Dioren suffered prolonged states of fugue, glaring personality shifts, and uncharacteristically violent actions, of which he later remembered naught. He was uncertain of even the most simple preferences; chores that kept him cheerfully occupied one day were maligned the next, foods he devoured he later spat out unapologetically - twas little wonder he was shunned in his early years. Only upon his peredhil majority of 150 years, Elrond and Erestor had theorized, would he truly be whole, truly be one within himself. 

This was, however, only a hypothesis, whose accomplishment could possibly break the young elf long before unity in spirit would be his. 

Dioren’s salvation had come one crisp spring day, in the courtyard of Erestor’s school, when the Lord’s brash young grandson had forced the shy, adolescent peredhil into his acquaintance, a maneuver only his tenacious Rohrith could so subtly and so righteously accomplish. Despite the forty-year separation in their ages, they had been inseparable since. Rohrith’s strength of character, even but a season past infancy, had impressed Dioren, encouraged and molded him into the gracious, yet highly social elf he was now. Rohrith’s example had brought others into the peredhil’s previously insular circle; though he still tormented himself over his more calamitous spells, he learned to take his glacial fugues in stride and so did his growing number of friends. Rohrith had likewise opened even Elrond’s eyes to Dioren’s potential. He had fought his grandfather for months to allow Dioren to take up the sword, charging that the discipline would focus him (which it had). He was similarly argumentative over how they sheltered Dioren from his own independence, insisting that he could never discover his true self if he was not given a chance at autonomy. It was thus that Dioren was granted a ground-level talan of his own, in which not one incident had come to pass. 

Rohrith’s greatest influence, however, was in the cultivation of his friend’s mind. His fugues had caused Dioren’s mother to neglect his early education, even those among Erestor’s staff found his tutelage rife with problems and obstacles. Rohrith, however, burned through all this with his usual fiery determination, challenging his own following of ponderous philosophers, devout swordbrothers, and broody diplomats to constantly engage Dioren when he was in their company. These caused periods of intense reflection that began to keep his fugues at bay, as Dioren was of a wonderfully philosophic, clever, and musing mind. He was also the sweetest, most kindly elf one could imagine; he had long conquered the memory of his dour, isolated elflinghood to emerge as an adult even more amiable – when in high mirth – than even Brithor. Every and all were welcome in his company. He had even frequented his share of maids. Though none had moved him past a fleeting indulgence, he was so courtly to them none felt hard against him and every one still held him as a friend. 

After a hundred years of close confidence, he was more than ought Rohrith’s second, and would one day prove the most valued of advisors to him. Rohrith’s relentless friendship had given Dioren a priceless foundation on which to form his own striking character; he was refined, not shaped, by the preternatural drive of this unshakably loyal one. As Dioren now sailed towards the choppy waters of his imminent peredhil majority and the two tributary rivers of his persona poured tempestuously into one, he would need the buoyancy and spirit of Rohrith’s devotion to keep him afloat. 

But at what cost to his brave, but tender-hearted grandson? 

Though long resolved past such dramatics now, they had almost lost even this valiant one in the weeks following his first majority. Simply put, Rohrith loved his friend more than platonically, wholly and entirely, in every possible way one could. Their extended family was appraised of this one secret, the only confidence he had ever kept from his beloved one, but Dioren himself patently ignored even the most vivid evidence of such an emotion. The flame of hope that Dioren could somehow return his affection had flared quite injuriously in the face of his unspoken, implied rejection, thus Rohrith had become sick with grief. Dioren, while gravely concerned for his friend, had floated about as if completely oblivious to his weakening; there to succor him, to cheer him, but not to satisfy him. None of the elders could decently reason out why an elf so shrewd as Dioren, minutely attuned to the cares of his constant companion, could be so obtuse. 

Even long past Rohrith’s mysterious recovery – by some rallying of courage none could verily justify – solutions were proposed in quiet, family circles, all things from his traditionalist Sinda origins to his stupefying preference for maids. Yet none who longly observed the friends together could rightly cling to such a secondary theory, as Dioren’s fond gestures towards Rohrith spoke a language all too familiar to longtime ellon couples. 

Which raised the matter of his impending melding of souls. Dioren’s fits and spells served a purpose, as most afflictions did. Though his conscious mind had repressed the manner of his death, the terrorized little elfling that had loomed, parentless, at Mandos for over a millennia knew all too well what demonic foe had slain him. He was haunted by echoes, by ephemeral images of his killing, as well as by the impulses and urges of the tenderling he had once been. As even during his spells Dioren dissociated himself from the present time, Elrond believed that his occasional bursts of violence when so maddened came from the slow reliving of these imperiled moments from his previous existence, so that only once he had entirely remembered his passing could his two spirits flame as one. The frequency with which these fits were reoccurring suggested that such a possession was imminent. The Lord only hoped Dioren was strong enough to survive such intense and overwhelming terrors.

Luckily, his conclusions were not entirely unprecedented. Glorfindel had, of late, taken Dioren under his wing, as much to exorcise his own memories of rebirth as to aid the young elf. Though Glorfindel had always been a blazing spirit of undaunted character, he well understood the strangeness of inhabiting a foreign body that is nevertheless your own, the feeling of dispossession inherent to the advent of a reborn elf’s majority. He had been guiding Dioren in various meditation techniques, in order to summon his elfling spirit in a more controlled environment, but these sessions had not resulted in much success. Dioren felt more peaceful when in time with his surroundings, but was ravaged in the calling up of his stricken former self – an elfling’s horror was wild and untamable as a windstorm, it could not help but savage him something ferocious. 

Yet this latest incident only underlined the need for expediency in their endeavors, as Dioren’s past was swiftly afflicting his present circumstance, impregnating his current state of mind with bleak visions of direst cruelty.

It nearly broke his own spirit, to think of what Dioren must suffer through to become whole.

Elrohir now hung over the edge of the rail, his face drawn and conflicted. All on the terrace could hear Rohrith’s eloquent cooing in the tree below, Dioren embedded in his arms. None could mistake the fact that every word, every phrase was stealthily imbued with his love. Dioren would take what platonic succor he required from the purity of this heartfelt note, but the elders on the balcony above marked only the true tenor of his sing-song assurances, overwhelmed as it was by the ever-constant refrain of friendship, of loyalty and of devotion. 

Witnessing this touching scene, of a tragedy all its own, Elrond was suddenly struck by the reason for Rohrith’s recovery. His grandson knew, better than any, the perils Dioren faced in coming to his majority; had recognized, as only one of his gifted foresight could, that the peredhil would not survive without him. He had, with a strength of will as titanic and selfless as that of his uncle Elladan, chosen to stave off death itself in order to serve his most beloved. If, once Dioren was whole, he still clung to his maidenly pursuits, then Rohrith could not say he had not given his all for love. He would most certainly fade; quickly at that. Until such a time, he would rein himself in, he would repress his own desires, and he would rage against his dying light, all for the life of one who cherished him in every way, save the one of most import. 

Elrond could almost weep, he admired him so. 

“Have you never remarked upon, ioneth,” the Lord commented to Elrohir. “Rohrith’s incredible resemblance to Elladan, in character?” 

When the elf-knight remained impassive, Glorfindel replied in his stead: “Often have I noted this. Fearless, impetuous, masterfully stubborn, and altogether relentless in the face of adversity… he is your son in spirit, melethron.” Elladan himself just chuckled at this characterization, kissing his husband on the cheek. 

“But he is mine, by fate,” Elrohir sighed, turning to face them. “Though he seems resolved to emulate your tortuous path to love, gwanur. I pray he weathers it so well.” 

“I pray his heart is answered soonest,” Elladan frowned in turn. “I would not wish my earlier suffering on any, let alone one so gentle as he in loving.” 

At this reminder of his brother’s torment, Elrohir’s face grew ashen. Elrond felt he would give anything in his expansive power to see his dear son heartened, to see his grandson beloved. 

In matters of love, alas, they were all powerless to the fates. 

* * * 

Two Months Later

The day was shady and cool for early summer, the uniform cast of cloud above meshing the dense foliage of the treeline into a blurred canopy of green and gray. The still, portentous air hung over him like a translucent film, thick with the scent of verdure, earth, and bark. The forest was dank, unsettled, and he along with it, as if its hollows hid a predatory presence, some phantom shadow lurking beyond. Rohrith unconsciously gripped the hilt of his sword, but trudged along undaunted through the murk, eager for the company that awaited him. 

He was distracted, he well knew, perchance too distracted for a proper swordfight. His night had been restless; so swollen with sultry dreams that he had been jostled awake, over and again, by the last, sizzling bolts of pleasure before his final, rapturous spurt – one would hardly think him an elf of a hundred-fifteen years. Yet summer climes unfailingly brought out the longing in him, such were the sodden trials of prolonged abstinence. He would not sleep for the entire broiling month of midsummer with his body so provoked, but the satiating alternative was too revolting to even contemplate. He had not broken his vow to never touch another he did not love since his eighty-third year, he would not be now conquered by his lusts. He would bear through, as ever; every ache and throb justifying his worthiness for Elbereth’s eventual reward. 

He prayed nightly the Lady would bless him soonest, while some sanity was left him. 

His preoccupied, yet roused mood was not helped in the least by his sudden coming upon the very epicenter of his desire’s sway, though a rendez-vous with said elf was his intended destination. As he approached the training fields, he found Dioren practicing his fighting form, through a series of poses that flexed every sinuous muscle of his limber frame and stretched every meat-thick limb most alluringly, his sleek body veritably thrumming with the feral power of full maturation. Echoriath had so often sung the praises of the oncoming of peredhil majority when Tathren grew bashful over his own gossamer hirsuteness, that it was almost a joke among family, but witnessing the phenomenon himself, Rohrith’s torment became nearly excruciating in his already over-excited state. 

Dioren’s deadly beauty only further maddened him. Hair like the golden gleam of sun on the filaments of a spider’s web, face a striking architecture of plains, angles, and curves, heavy-lidded eyes of exotic shape but of ice blue clarity (except when in the haze of a fugue), body of a colossus though elegant as a swan; only the knowledge of his gentle demeanor and perilously fragile heart had kept Rohrith from seducing him outright. Nay, that last was disingenuous; the potential ruin of their sterling friendship ever sobered him, not to mention the troubles that plagued this extraordinary elf he adored. 

Valar, but he was crudely bent, this day! One would think him a wanton, so insulting was his baseness to such a loyal, one dear as a brother to him. Perhaps he should beg off their proposed rally and seek the giddy company of his twins. A sword would be but a paltry defense against the assault of Dioren’s ethereal might in combat, where he was often at his loveliest. Rohrith flushed with shame at the very thought of his friend thus, he must focus on the continued repression of these false yearnings. There were times when he believed he should allow himself to feel this and all tenors of his affection, loose the shackles that kept his love caged and let unrestrained emotion flee its century-long imprisonment within him, but he instinctively knew such a titanic revelation would lose Dioren to him forever, if not outright endanger him. 

Barely a six-month from his full majority, Dioren’s fugues had stretched out interminably. He now spent entire days in a soft-witted slump, woke thrashing through his sheets like a lion cub. Yet his days of sharpness were incisively so; he was keener, more cunning, and more acute in his observations than ever before, so long as these were impersonal. When one touched on a personal matter, he rattled with startling ease, even barking at Rohrith’s careful prodding where once he would emphatically confide (for his grandsire had told him in which direction to guide his emergent memory). Since the loss of his horse, there had been no further incidents involving others. Instead, Dioren’s wrath was self-inflicted, though in the aftermath he was both deeply ashamed of such incredulous behavior and helpless to say what prompted him to slash at his own skin. 

Rohrith would not himself acknowledge the soul-aches this inspired within him; better to focus on his lechery and avoid the agony of tenderness altogether. 

This week had been blessedly torture-free, almost entirely joyful for his friend. The High Council was hosting its decennial visit from the Elders of Vinyamar. Just days before, there had been an open forum to various local interests groups, to incite alliances in such common regards between the towns. Rohrith had represented the youth contingent, giving an ecstatically received oration before a theatre audience consisting of most of the vale; Dioren had naturally acted as his secretary. The flurry of preparation before had centered Dioren, just as his recent bodily development had incited him to train more regularly at swords. He was anxious to exercise the potential he felt coursing within him and Rohrith was the only one in their age class who could match him. 

Both patently ignored the fact that Rohrith was also the only elf who would meet him in such a treacherous context, rumors being what they would ever be.

With a snort of mocking impatience, Rohrith announced himself, eyebrow perched in wry commentary on Dioren’s display. The peredhil was humble enough to blush at his own vanity, though beneath there was a faint glow of pride. Dioren was not entirely unaware of his own comeliness – he lured maids to his bed easily enough with his charms – if ought, he clung to such qualities, as he felt there was not much else to commend him, what with the spells, fits, everlasting fugues, and peculiar past. Indeed, he had never quite reconciled himself to the honor of Rohrith’s elemental and instantaneous befriending, but he knew it as a gift from the Valar themselves and would never in any mind forsake him for such benevolence. They both knew terribly well he would not live long, if Rohrith were to quit him entirely. 

This painful truth kept Dioren strong and constant, but also kept Rohrith’s heart dimmed to friendly affection. 

“You look spry,” Rohrith taunted him, blatantly admiring his physique as he knew this would only chasten Dioren further. “Quite ruddy, indeed. Were there revels, night last?” 

“There may have been revels,” Dioren demurred, though obviously raring to tell of his exploits. Rohrith welcomed the recounting of even the most salacious tales, though they pricked him viciously, for he knew how their revelation helped bolster his friend’s feeble confidence. “Bregorn and Ianthir dragged me to the ale hall, with some of the Vinyamarian secretaries. I had no wares to sell in this troubled time, as you well know, but could I help it if I was approached?”

“Was she fair?” Rohrith goaded him, his tone studiously mirthful.

“Fair enough,” Dioren confessed, reddening even deeper. “She was plump bottomed and terribly soft. The softness, I think, is what lures me… She was visiting from Vinyamar herself, the daughter of a councilor. She knew naught of my repute.” 

“Perhaps that was what lured you,” Rohrith remarked, though his point was blunted some.

“Perhaps,” Dioren admitted, darkening. 

Rohrith, chiding himself for his idiocy, urged him on: “And did you for a time find some much deserved merriment? Some relief?” 

“She was pleasant enough, though not to linger with,” Dioren conceded, his face yet preoccupied by some hint of sadness, as ever it was when he spoke of coupling. “The release was all I sought. I will not meet her again.” 

“You might do well to enjoy yourself, for a time,” Rohrith suggested, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Your mind is clear, these days. Why not take an extra share of pleasure, before the trials to come?” They always spoke forthright of Dioren’s state, as they felt naught could be faced in dishonesty. 

“If you seek not such fleshly pleasures,” Dioren countered. “Then why should I?” 

“I am not afflicted,” Rohrith murmured, so as not to injure him with pique. “I see plainly how such dalliances strengthen you. You are always fit and rosy, afterwards, your mind at blessed ease. For myself, I took my share upon my majority, and several times thereafter. I am content.” 

Dioren’s eyes bore into him, then, as if rapt on his very soul. 

“Nay, you are ill-content, gwador-nin,” he threw back, though with implicit caring. “I may be troubled, but I too see plain, all too blatantly how your hot gaze follows the river-rowers as they churn, or the builders as they knock about the trees. The summertime has ever boiled your blood, yet you insist on abstinence. Why? And do not say I deserve pleasure because *I* am afflicted – do you think I make no mark of how my fits and fugues afflict *you*, meldiren?”

“I care not for trysting,” Rohrith dodged. “I desires only… true affection.” 

“True affection is not found glowering about one’s talan,” Dioren countered, though did not wish to press him too roughly, as he would only chafe further. “Perhaps you should dally with a maid or two, if you find the love of males wanting…” 

“Ha! You would only be too glad of it,” Rohrith snarked, seizing upon the chance to lighten their conversation. “We could sniff about the ale halls together, like a pair of randy wargs in mating season.” Both laughed quite heartily at this image, though by now eager to take up arms. “But I should ask the same offense of you, gwador! Why do *you* not take up with some strapping male and feast on your virility awhile?” 

“After your moping and maudlin example?” Dioren shot back, as his opponent doffed his cloak. “I have my fill of agony!”

“Tis no agony to be thusly filled,” Rohrith winked saucily, at which his friend gasped with appropriately effete shock. “Indeed, one becomes quite debauched by such ecstasies, if the broadsword is suitably deft.” 

“Yours best learn some craft, if you are to best me this day,” Dioren repliqued, positioning himself for their rally. “I feel the spirit within.” 

“I assure you of my prowess in either form of swordplay,” Rohrith flicked his tongue at him, which caused Dioren to fall into a rather unmenacing fit of giggles. “Now cease your snickering and let us play!” 

“Indeed,” Dioren sneered, with overabundant – though still mocking - salaciousness. “Then I beg you, mellon-nin… prove my arrogance forthwith, best me in close combat, and err not in driving your *point home*!” 

Rohrith felt, just then, that he may very well have to do his worst, even to such a friend. 

Either that, or he would kiss him senseless. 

*

A rush of wind wilded through the training fields, as the duellists commenced the encircling movement that always instigated their fights. The woods about were stark, silent, as if stilled by the rumble of distant thunder. Their taunts snarled and their stances broken, their feral stares mated ferociously, ever anticipating the first strike of their singing swords. Their bodies feigned a casual stroll when with every step, with every clench of hand they anticipated that singeing connection, with even the merest flick of wrist their battle would begin. 

Dioren met his opponent with eyes that could cut glass, pristine and elusive. His focus refined to a dagger’s scoring tip, he patiently awaited, without need of the usual blustery sniffs and scoffs, Rohrith’s overture. Though his friend sneered rather convincingly, it was against the brash elf’s nature to let himself be affronted, to immediately take on a defensive tact. Ever did Rohrith stride forth, lead on, be the first to raise the rafters and the last to gloriously ‘scape away. He was presently holding fast against Dioren’s usual maneuver, but despite its deployment in every single duel they had fought in the last hundred years, he would not be restrained. Before long, his shoulders would bristle defiantly, his head would rear; he’d snort to stable himself. He’d tempt Dioren into lashing out with his time-worn abuses - so painless as to be laughable – and would only himself suffer aggravation. 

The very live element of Rohrith’s essence was to charge, to delve, prod, and pierce, to *penetrate* one’s defenses and know them from within. Twas thus from the first between them; the adamant elfling who had ruthlessly stood before the sun itself, demanding his hand in friendship and plopping himself summarily down beside him, to prove his own oath true. Rohrith had not been satisfied with mere friendship, however. If he inspired devotion, it was because he gave all in return, filling your brain with impossible notions about the beauty of your character and urging your body towards unthinkable feats that ultimately proved your courage. His challenges bettered you. His example rallied you into form. He knew your heart so implicitly that he dared to believe of you what you could not yet conscience. If not for his influence, Dioren would still be lost in the mire of shame at his condition, occupied in naught but mucky self-flaggelation, in the continually somber state Rohrith had found him in a century ago. Instead, he had achieved lethal excellence in sword training, was considered one of the most intuitive minds in philosophic debate, and, after the trials of his majority, would be employed as an advisor to the most eloquent starling in the vale’s diplomatic roost. 

To be possessed by his brother-friend’s regard was a thing of hallowed purity, as vital to one’s wellness as the air itself. 

The fact of this would not, however, keep Dioren from demolishing the darkling elf’s barely-controlled cool with aloofness, from eviscerating his form as they battled. Rohrith had been the one, after all, who whet his taste for triumph. To best one of such merciless skill was the most delicious victory his too oft humbled spirit had ever known.

Their swordplay was entirely enthralling, his preference of their many shared activities. On the fields, they were equal, in stature, in talent. Opposed, they were tested as with no other fighter. Together, none could dream of besting them. Though often wrung to the very limits of himself, Dioren gladly bore through *this* form of pain, as their abolishing exertion was always accompanied by an unparalleled oneness. Even when dueling, they ducked and swung in a complimentary cadence; the only break in rhythm came with a hit. Yet unfailingly, they would fall back into the constant sway of gush and swell, their motions fluid, complicit. Even in physical contest, Rohrith could not ebb the mad rush of his heart; even in conquest, your frustrations were smote by the overtaking flow of his admiration for you - who fought so honorably - that you could be naught but gracious in defeat. 

Dioren was nevertheless tickled with pleasure, when Rohrith’s stoic manner began to chafe. To further bait him, he slid the steel shafts of their swords together, teasing as a caress. The telltale snort was grunt out with the fire of a fuming dragon, he flexed the scales of his spine. His black, impenetrable eyes sparked with ire, his jowls pooled with froth he could not yet swallow down. With a toothy smirk, Dioren stroked his sword anew, nearly tapping at the white knuckles so tightly fisted around the hilt. 

A lightening flash streaked across those ominous eyes; Rohrith lunged at him. 

Sparks flew as their swords clashed furiously, the might of wills momentarily overcoming the finery of form. A growling jab at his side caused Dioren to wrench back, opening the field wide for their game. Rohrith was particularly vicious this morn, stabbing repeatedly in an overtly gutting move, which challenged Dioren to further the complexities of his own fighting technique. He mined every lesson for a parry, a thrust, even a swipe that might surprise his opponent. His rapid-fire response only plummeted them towards a sequence of breathtaking speed and force. Neither, however, once so engaged would soon relent the fearsome rage of their duelling. They hacked and slashed their way blind off the training fields, into the swampy mist and the marshy ground of the woods. 

Even as Dioren vaulted over a ridge to steal a second’s respite from their thrashing, the dank atmosphere unsettled him. Icy pins pricked into his spine, the ghostly whisper of the elfling’s glacial presence descending upon him like gauzy brume. He cursed, whined, but was distracted by an assault from Rohrith’s ever-cunning blade, such that he drifted even further out of his skin and left his scything body to instinct alone. This specter of his past smoked into him, snatching him away from that elemental oneness with his sparring partner and infusing his too-vulnerable mind with an altogether more graphic scene of slaughter. 

His own, to be revisited anew. 

*

His every muscle, stretch, and sinew thrumming with potency, Rohrith leapt over the muddy slope with breathtaking agility, then flew back into the fray. 

Dioren’s play was positively inspired, with such aggressive force and dexterity that Rohrith’s body veritably surged with glutting energy as he twisted, wrenched, and struck brutally back, ever hungry for more. They were beyond keen, in his thrill-gorged esteem; they were titans roaring through the heavens, their battle epic, insurgent, and all-encompassing. No act of love between them could be so climactic as this moment, roused as they were to the essential expulsion of all within them. In close combat he knew Dioren more sacredly than any yielding flesh, their visceral compact as earnest as any baring of the body, their vulnerability as explicit. In this coupling of prowess, partnered in battle or parrying on the green, they swore to take the other’s life in hand, survival dependent on skill alone. 

Here, in the crucible of war and will, they had become one. 

He wished the fight would never end.

*

The woods about were strange, weirded with cloying murk and writhing with shadow. He sensed the danger, crawling like beetles over his skin, but it had yet to strike. 

They whipped along the homeward path as swiftly as sparrows in a gale, not daring to look back lest fear lead the charge against them. Already he could feel his sword slice through the sickly air, through tenuous leathers straps, through seething hide, though he had never killed before. He would kill now, kill any manner of revolting creature, to see his friend safe. As they streaked through the gloaming mirkwood, his heart pounded so that he felt as if already fighting, hacking and jabbing in desperation, to stave off some incipient foe. An errant branch thwacked hard on his wrist when he grabbed for his friend’s hand; even the trees, shroud in gloom, were against them. 

Before he could rightly look about, an arrow grazed his ear. They were instantaneously overtaken by a legion of hissing, teeming orcs, their gnarled faces and their beady eyes everywhere at once. Though nearly disemboweled with terror, he unleashed the sterling strike of his sword, staking three through the innards before he could rightly swing. The clank and clatter of his dearly friend battling beside summoned up his sense. He launched himself at the sniveling hordes with one blazing thought effulgent, to keep vigil over the imperiled flame of his surest of fellows. 

He fought with voracious bite, but with little flair. He bathed in the hot spurt of blood as if in a bubbling spring, with their every witless death was his life assured. He maimed, mauled, and feverishly mutilated with a heart befouled by this first battlefield horror, never again wanting to steal the breath from another being even as he speared his sword true. Only his friend’s relentless grunts kept his wits about him, as long as he drew breath, he would hold strong against the monstrous tide. 

Silence struck cold, deadly swift. 

He knew it in his bones, though his spirit yet fingered the bristles of their severed connection, pleading for some thread, some frayed string that still linked them, but no longer. A broad and bulky figure towered above him, poised to cleave him in twain. He smelt the sweet elven blood on the fiend’s sword, like the most fragrant ambrosia, and knew he could not thusly fall. Quick as the glint of silver on a mithril binding band, he slit the creature fine across the abdomen. 

The shock of it held back the orc’s executing sword, oddly seemed to ripple the ether around them. The creature staggered, paused, but he had not sliced deep enough to topple him. 

“Play on, Dioren!!” the creature snarled, his subsequent thrust entirely unaffected by any sense of wounding. 

They flew back into battle, rough and unrelenting, though Dioren was so shaken by his missed chance, by the sure promise of his waiting death, that he could barely defend himself. The creature, however, hooked on some maddening rush of adrenaline, jabbed pierce after pierce into the emptiness beside his most vulnerable points, as if compelling him to fully engage. Dioren bared up bravely under this manic assault, but every swing further sapped his energies, until he was backed against the blunt trunk of an enormous tree and succumbed to weeping. His sword trenched into the mulch, the universal signal of surrender, he mumbled a hasty prayer of safekeeping to Mandos, then stood tall for his slaying. 

The clog of tears in his eyes would save him from witnessing the kill stroke. 

It never came down. Instead, he was petted by a soothing touch, seeking only his submission. Once his flinching was tamed, steady arms enveloped him; his sweat-soaked rescuer murmured reassurances in steaming breaths against his cheek. Suddenly, everything was uncertain. The forest smelt damp, but clean of murk. The elf that held him was unconscionably familiar, but not threateningly so. His mind was not crisp, as after such a ragged fight, but dense with fog. As his eyes were blotted by a silken sleeve, a face so welcome was revealed to him that Dioren thought he might weep again. 

Rohrith. 

*Elbereth*, he had had another of his spells. 

The darkling elf’s face was rife with concern, his keen obsidian eyes entirely focused on his skittish friend. 

“Dioren, return to me,” he urged him, with typical adamancy. “All is well, gwador-nin. All is ended.” 

“I… I know it,” Dioren essayed, his throat raw. With a trembling sigh of relief, Rohrith yanked him into a crushing hug, holding his friend fast against further trouble, though none threatened. 

“Forgive me,” he bleat. “For pushing you so. For allowing such fierce combat to continue thus… I should have thought!” 

“We have not experienced such troubles before,” Dioren attempted to pacify him, imbuing his own force into the embrace. “Tis novel.” 

“Novel!” Rohrith exclaimed, but did temper some. 

Yet he clung quite longly to him, startlingly overwhelmed. When they finally drew back, Rohrith had blanched an ill, waif-like white, his movements sluggish and his head uncommonly weighted. Dioren’s memory buzzed aloud, remembering with suddenly stinging acuity the sword slice that had echoed through the air itself. His dreadful eyes dipped down to Rohrith’s middle, where a skirt of blood was seeping down his lap. 

Before Dioren could even unleash a cry of shock, Rohrith collapsed into his arms. 

 

End of Part One


	8. Rohrith’s Tale, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a companion piece to Of Elbereth’s Bounty, which takes place between the action of the final chapter (16) and the epilogue, set centuries in the future. Some of the characters from OEB deserved to have their own stories wrapped up outside of the actual narrative of that tale. This particular tale, along with Ciryon’s Tale, concern the majority rites of two of Tathren’s triplet brothers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimers: Characters belong to that wily old wizard himself, Tolkien the Wise, the granddad of all 20th century fantasy lit. I serve at the pleasure of his estate and aim not for profit.   
> Author’s Note: While I think parts of this story can be understood on their own, I think it better to read the whole cycle, or at least Of Elbereth’s Bounty, to completely understand the world I’ve created and the character histories. The series is as follows: Part One is ‘In Earendil’s Light’, Part Two is ‘Under the Elen’, and the vastly larger Part Three is ‘Of Elbereth’s Bounty’.   
> Feedback: Would be delightful.   
> Dedication: To Eresse, as always.

Rohrith’s Tale – Part Two

Early Summer, Year 260, Fourth Age

The surgery was swathed in the warm, metallic scent of blood, flint-sharp with adrenaline and as coolly fragrant as a flask of Forochel ice wine. Purple gore was crusted over the front of his tunic, was flecked over his sleeves and was spattered over his neck, blaming him as predator. The table before him was nearly varnished with a thick crimson glaze, but naught could compare to the filmy, teary red he saw when he marked his own ghostly reflection in the scalpel’s blade. 

Dioren held fast against self-disgust; this was no time for either grief or glowering. 

Rohrith’s listless body was laid out on the table before him, limp and ragged as doll abused by the love of an over-exuberant child. Drifting from moment to moment between a beatific lucidity and a humble forbearance, his titan-hearted friend focused himself on the steady accomplishment of constant breaths, on the maintenance of wakefulness, on the grateful endurance of Elrond and Erestor’s fleet but gutting ministrations. As their agile fingers repeatedly dabbed a clotting cloth over the clean-sliced edges of his severed abdomen, purified the wound with spirits, and sewed their patient’s belly back together, he murmured a warrior’s chant to himself, to stave off the excoriating pain. Elrond had not dared administer a tranquilizing draught to his already overexerted grandson, lest his fea slip away to Mandos in that heady, drugged sleep. Unwilling to distract Rohrith from his lynch-pin concentration, Elrond had only once murmured, with the first, terrible prick of his needle, that the young swordsmith was bearing through this trouble with Elrohirian poise. Other than a slight quiver of lip, Elrond had received no other response from his resolute patient.

Rohrith’s hand was trenched in Dioren’s grasp like an anchor in the sand amidst the riptide. The only quaver in his focal hold came when his black velvet eyes looked to Dioren. They were so mercifully gentle that the peredhil would have wept, had he not himself been so adamantly committed to supporting his friend, to praying for his survival. Though the acid tongue of guilt was by the second rusting over the walls of his stomach, corroding his innards to nasty orange dust, though the skin of his heart still fumed from the traitor-brand his grievous deed had singed there, he had careened his yet swimming senses into a single, determined flow long enough to steer his friend through this calamity. On countless occasions, their roles had been reversed; Dioren had known succor such that Elbereth herself might beg to be indulged in. He could not now give in to the fugue that burned the back of his eyes, that bit at the edges of his perception with brilliant, twinkling fangs. He must suffer as Rohrith was; if not through bodily maiming, then through the consistent and relentless flagellation of his soul. 

He could no longer ignore the truth, as vivid and visceral as the pools of Rohrith’s blood around his prone form. He was a menace. 

A curse was wrung from Rohrith’s sallow lips, as a viscous bile gurgled from the wound. The initial cut had been deep, but mostly superficial, his vital organs were unblemished. Some spirits, however, had spilt onto his liver; a mostly harmless trip of tense fingers, except for the searing fire it incited within the patient. His afflicted stomach instinctively convulsed, but Rohrith valiantly swallowed back the spew, the effort squeezing teardrops from the corner of his clenched eyes. Dioren wiped these away with a pristine tissue – the only unsullied rag in the entire surgery – tormented all the more by the shameful repercussions of his berating reverie, even though it had been Erestor who slipped with the alcohol. 

Corralling himself to the task at hand, he petted the length of Rohrith’s arm with brisk sweeps, hoping to further distract him. No babbling tales nor swordbrother songs were needed when their eyes locked; Rohrith’s were hard as pearls with fearsome, undaunted spirit. Their piercing obsidian stare struck to the core of him. Lost in the endless black well of their depths, Dioren understood, then, that even in such dire straits it was Rohrith who was keeping him moored in harbor, his senses from being cottoned in by fog and his mind from drifting out to sea. A steel grip nearly broke his hand, as those onyx eyes demanded his attention, his allegiance, his compliance in his own protection. With one bold look, Rohrith commanded him to stay alert to his own vulnerability, to keep safe whilst his chief guardian recuperated, to overcome the misery of his own guilty conscience and to fight for his bright future. Worst of all, in those scintillating midnight climes a radiant forgiveness sparked, starlit and ethereal, an off-splinter of the Lady’s own benevolence. With a wink sweetened by his strained smile, he erased any wrong with which Dioren could charge himself and silently pledged anew to their eternal friendship. 

In that blithe moment, Rohrith seized a strangle-hold upon his birthright as Elrohirion and entitled himself with the gracious legacy of his sire, the Elf-Knight. 

With a mewl of defeat, Dioren sagged on his rickety stool, his head suddenly as weighty as a runic stone. The sickly kiss of his bleak mistress fugue besotted him with a cozy numbness; the blank aftermath of his visionary spell beckoned him from the otherworld. His want of sentience, of wellness, was so thick in his mouth that he almost spat at the air around him, but in his weariness he knew he was powerless to resist. With Rohrith’s blessing affirmed, he would sink into the mire, to forget forever the murky woods, the ephemeral presence of his unknown companion, the creature’s upraised sword that had caused him to unwittingly strike his friend. He would be a scroll untainted by ink, his early memories embedded therein, but invisible. Only the sight, upon the fugue’s breaking, of his wounded friend would remind him of his deed, though the guilt would be summoned swiftly enough and Rohrith’s absolution would require a desperate repetition. As he dropped his dear friend’s clammy hand and staggered back apace, he could not induce a further thought from conception into action, so dense and drooping was he.

“Grandsire,” Rohrith rasped assertively, his face awash with sorrow. “Look to Dioren.” 

Two cloaked ravens flew by him, fluttering about their injured brother with warming caws and clucks. When his legs gave way, arms lithe and limber scooped him up, cradling him as a bud on a bough. The misty, fertile scent of wood-elf roused him some, enough for Dioren to perceive that he was being carried off to the ward, to the welcoming sheets of a cot, then rocked quite tenderly to sleep by – astoundingly – Legolas himself. 

His last thought was something akin to relief, before the fugue frosted over him. 

*  
The giggles lured him back from the nothingness, mad and manic peals of them that echoed through the patient’s ward, like bubbles floating on the breeze. As innocent and enrapturing as an elfling’s elated trills, the giddy laughter poked at his somnolent mind until it was goaded into wakefulness. A groggy, meandering wakefulness, but a mostly cognizant one. Dioren was leaden upon his cot, his muscles creaky and his throat choked with phlegm. His head was typically stuffed with cotton, such that he could naught but reason he awoke from a fugue, of indeterminable length but of considerable potency, if his body’s doleful response was accurate measure. 

For a time, he collected memories as elven children collect stray leaves, woozily piecing together the moments before his lapse. Fear shot through him such that he wrenched upright, until he realized that the cackling elf in the cot beside was, indeed, Rohrith. 

Unnoticed for the present, he lay back to observe his friend awhile, or more specifically the damage done. His middle was cocooned in a thick, gauzy bandage, which stank from the usual mullseed compress within. Rohrith’s face was not a whit invigorated by his strange hysteria, his look gaunt and his skin bleached to a startling pallor, even as his features grimaced in delight. Dioren could not quite fathom what matter was so mirth-inducing as to utterly besot him with glee, since there was not another elf in sight save the two of them. 

After some casual reflection, a thought flared bright; one that might similarly incite him into a giggle-fit. For one so often beset by gaps in his own memory, Dioren had seized upon the answer more acutely than even the esteemed Lord of Telperion. He wondered that Elrond was not aware of his grandson’s peculiar reaction to sleeping draughts, which far from easing him into repose, had an altogether opposite effect upon his beleaguered person, as was only too evident from his present state of overabundant merriment. 

His sentient mind still buffered from the harshness of circumstance – and his most dreadful part in it – by the last, lingering clouds of fog, Dioren lurched off his own cot and all but crawled over to Rohrith’s side. His friend’s focus was so scattershot that he went mostly unremarked, even as he gathered his considerable peredhil bulk into a nearby chair. As if slowly sinking into a scalding bath, Dioren allowed the shame of his earlier, injurious actions to well up within him, suffering every whip, claw, and smack of self-berating anew. Although he also remembered Rohrith’s cutting-table forgiveness, one glance at his broken body blinded him to the image of that genteel smile, those rapt obsidian eyes. He did not in his wildest imaginings deserve such a friend as this one before him, who blessed him with every clutch of support, every encouraging word, every second at his side. 

He would not need to ponder the matter of his worthiness for long yet. This last, gutting action had sealed his fate. He would not be allowed to repay a moment of that kindness, not because he was not overwhelmed with gratitude, but for the sanctity of the one he held in such regard. This was, perhaps, the last time he would lay such unguarded eyes upon his goodly friend. Dioren himself nearly hoped for this, such was the indignity of his treacherous act. No parent in their right mind would grant one so hazardous as he further access to their son, no father was so misguided, no mother so pathetically foolish. That he had been blessed with the time before, that he had known the blitheness of Rohrith’s friendship for so long, was a miracle in itself. Even if those in this noble house were indeed blind to the dangers of his condition – for they were an incredibly honorable lot – he himself will not conscionably imperil his bosom friend, not for either of his wretched lives. 

Bleak as the out-spread future seemed without Rohrith’s sun peaking over the horizon, Dioren would remain in the cold. He was a marginal creature at the best of times, skirting the limits of society, until he had been dragged into its seething heart by the boundless care of his friend. Yet for all Rohrith’s tireless efforts, he was still a specter; a formless, ephemeral thing better cast in shadow. There, he could mutate into his final form. He could feed on the darkness that had born him into this second life, exist for the last of his time as this bisected, monstrous spirit, for Dioren did not truly believe that his two souls would meld, that he would come to know his whole self. He would retreat from elven society if only to save Rohrith his despair, after the passing of Dioren’s majority left him perpetually haunted. It was enough to know he had his fondest affection, his platonic devotion. 

It was enough to have been his friend a golden while. 

As the onset of clarity burned through his misty mind, Dioren smiled upon his friend. He ached with the realization that, in their final moments together, Rohrith would be the one with addled-brain and roving focus, but Dioren could not chance a confrontation with his regular, impetuous and unyielding self. He would be gutted with misery at the loss of that bright flame’s balming warmth, but he would bear through his shivers, all-too-deservedly suffer the chill, until Mandos welcomed him to eternity. There were no more manly descendants to sire him anew, even should his mother be released. Perhaps he would find a home there, with her ghost. Ever had he belonged to the waiting halls; even to the present day, he had not entirely quit them. His elfling self mewled and bleat through their ominous passageways, calling him back to the shadows. 

He would go presently. 

With an urgent clasp to Rohrith’s hand, Dioren begged his friend’s swimming attention. Rohrith grinned euphorically at the swaying sight of him, folding his hand snugly between his forearms. The fringe of the bandage tickled the wispy hairs of his arm, another flirty reminder of the wrongdoing his friend had suffered for him. Yet at his dark frown, Rohrith whimpered sympathetically. 

“I feared for your wellness,” the darkling elf whined, to Dioren’s never-ending dismay. “Ada-Las said you fainted away in his arms.” 

“I am well enough,” Dioren dismissed his concern. “Fear not for me, gwador. Think only of your own health, of your own recovery. I am so sorry, my friend, for my carelessness-“

“Hush,” Rohrith ordered, but gently. “Tis but a scratch.” He was struck by a rolling chuckle. “The Valar thought but to chasten me some, to cure me of my thoughtless daring. They grow weary of my wiles.” 

This last piqued him anew, and he giggled infectiously. Were Dioren not so somber, he might have joined in. 

“You are the very instrument of their will to ever show me such kindness,” Dioren murmured, with heartbreaking earnestness. “Such concern and always such incredible care. You must know, gwador-nin, before sleep does take hold, of my… my endless gratitude for your presence in my life. For your example and your encouragement. If you had not befriended me, I would have known no sweetness in the world. I will…I will treasure the memory of our times together. Eternally.” 

“Such pain, meldiren,” Rohrith muttered, distracted as he was. “I could never conscience such acute suffering, even when ripped open. Must I bleed again, to soften you?” 

“Nay,” Dioren whispered, entirely overcome. “I will take leave of you, gwador, though it guts me to do so. You will never again bleed at my hand. At my bedeviled sword.” 

Dioren was nearly heartsick at the confused look foist upon him, struggling as it was to fully comprehend the meaning beneath his solemn pronouncement. No calming draught nor sip of spirits could have prepared him, however, for the words that followed suit.

“You must take heart, Dioren,” Rohrith reassured him. “I could not rightly shun one whose company I crave so. I will ever keep you by my side.” 

“I am the most wretched thing you ever held dear,” Dioren emphatically pronounced, somewhat disturbed by his familiar tone. “You must release me to the wilds, Rohrith, for your safe-keeping. Forget me.”

A stray hand, though lazy with weakness, touched to his cheek. 

“You are of a luminous loveliness, even in sorrow,” Rohrith languidly declared. His eyes suddenly shone like the most bedazzling obsidian stone, sparkling with raw, relentless emotion. “How is it than so radiant an elf can be so treacherously unaware of his own comeliness? Of the utterly besotting power of his person?” Warmed to his subject and oblivious to Dioren’s gaping shock, Rohrith blazed on with conviction. “How is it that such a sterling soul wastes his charms on the most insipid maids in the vale, when he is so hotly coveted by shipwrights, builders, and swordsmiths alike, whose loving would sear away even the most cloying brume? It unravels me nightly, lirimaer, to think of you… of you rutting away with care only for completion, when you could be so ecstatically filled, so… so bliss-drunk!” 

“B-bliss… drunk…?” Dioren muttered, smacked dumb by his brazen admission of regard. 

“Though of ethereal countenance,” Rohrith meandered on, his smile broadening with every second he could bask in the glaring perusal of Dioren’s astonished features. ”You are blessed with a sinuous sensuality, but ever shroud in mystery. Others long to unravel you, to delve into your secret places and know you from within.” If he had not already made his desire overt, his next words could not honestly be mistook. “*I* have thusly longed… but ever been denied. Why should those who gave you not a whit of care, who never stood vigil by your bedside nor succored you through a raging spell have the privilege of giving you pleasure? If you wish to speech about my suffering, then you must add to your dour toll how I have pined, broiled, and been raucously tormented, how I nearly faded from want of you!” Rohrith sighed quite contentedly at the end of this litany, as if the very utterance of the emotion gave him some measure of peace. 

Dioren, however, was desperately fraught. 

“The drug has dulled your wits, gwador,” he tried to coo, but it came out like a squeak. “It has befuddled your mind.” 

“Tis you who are befuddled,” Rohrith shook his head with giddy conviction. “Sated in body, but of a restless mind, even after your so-called sweeps of passion. Tis not lust that drives you to a maiden’s bed, but mental relief. Spiritual distraction. You have not known even the barest hint of love, Dioren; indeed, your exploits often seemed to sadden you more than hearten. You jest to cover your awkwardness and take false pride in virility, but have you ever truly been affected by another’s touch? By their mere presence? By the most fleeting sight of them? For I am so afflicted when I but think upon you. Even if you are not fated to return my love, I want only for your happiness, and as your dearest friend, I greatly fear it will not be found in the arms of a maid. You want for something… more commanding. I sense it keenly when we spar. Tis for this your mind retreats into a fugue. Twas most plainly felt, this day.” 

Despite his flaring reservations, Dioren was flagrantly struck by this too-pointed statement. His buried hands began to tremble, then to shake, his earlier chore of bidding farewell to his friend entirely forgotten in the fray of provocation, of realization. 

“Tis cruel to… to be so… sharp,” he sputtered. 

“One who has weathered your trials is no delicate bloom,” Rohrith dismissed. “You give no credit to your resilience, though it be far overdue. I could not so esteem one of unpalatable weakness, you know me well enough to know the truth of this. Even if I will never know of your care… I would that you embrace a love that will pierce into the core of your heart, that will bless you with a wholeness never even glimpsed, even in our blithe friendship. You need not fear my scorn should such a commendable event occur, meldiren, for I want only for your own peace of mind.” This last he pledged with eyes of luring velvet, so gorgeously enveloping that Dioren feared he had fallen into one of his own spells and was conjuring up the entire encounter. “Ever will you be the focus of my care, my protection, regardless of future ills that might beset you. Ever, maltaren-nin, will you be the finest and most beauteous of elves in my too-loving regard.” 

Dizzy from the continuous, pummeling blows of his friend’s lightheaded conversation, Dioren fell to his knees before the bed. He clutched at the sheets, at Rohrith’s iron hold, but could not further bear the adoring glitter of those onyx eyes. He penitently bowed his head, silently praying to Elbereth, to each of the panoply of deities within the Valar above, for guidance, for wisdom in this watershed moment between him and his great friend. He was so intent on subjugation that he did not note the rustle between the sheets before him, nor the tender touch that stroked down the side of his face and gently lifted his shuddering chin. 

Not until those velveteen eyes were as two black, pearlescent moons before him and a plump pair of satin lips smoothed over his own did he break from supplication, only to be kissed with an effect and ardor heretofore unknown. All sense of shame, of worry, even of self was obliterated by that lush embrace, its purity of such resonance he was breathtaken. 

A flick of tongue laved along the inner ridge of his lips, hot breath lured him into sultry climes. A luscious taste, such that one might gorge upon for endless hours, teased at him, but pulled away before he could be properly indulged. Still giggling kisses were fluttered around his mouth, but he was denied even the most chaste suckling. He had not yet quite figured why he would want to suckle his friend’s lips, nor why he was suddenly quite so desperate to peruse the texture of his tongue and to feast upon that maddeningly sweet taste. He only had wits enough to indefinitely delay his planned leave-taking, if only to know fully of such rapturous pleasures. 

Dioren was, as never before, so utterly besot by feeling that he quite gladly relinquished his sentience and gave himself entirely to fiercely surging emotion. 

Rohrith broke off with a groan of discomfort; he had strained his abdomen in leaning so. Dioren eased him onto his back, shook his head to clear it, but to no avail. He was entranced. He beamed a doting smile down upon his sickly friend, licking his lips to savor the remnants of that taste, that tongue. Nearly listless with fatigue, Rohrith seemed almost entirely unaware of what had just transpired; he groped about for Dioren’s hand until a firm, possessive hold twined over his. 

“Sleep, my dear one,” Dioren whispered, before softing a kiss over his cheek. 

Frazzled and thoroughly mystified by these last few moments, as well as by his emphatic response to them, he gazed upon the darkling elf for a longly while, battling to make coherent sense of the emotions swirling within, to understand what newly sprung current rushed through his meager veins. Dioren had always suspected that the curse of elven duality would be known to him, if only because his very nature was split twain. He vowed to wait-out Rohrith’s recovery before questing with him towards an undisclosed conclusion, the weight of his true vocation of sudden, stunning clarity to him.

Dioren was charged with keeping his heart safe. This hallowed task was unknowingly bequeathed to him long ago, and he had used the tender organ woefully, but no longer. Twas for this that spell beset him when it did, for this that the Valar let Rohrith be hurt at his hand. He had begged them for revelation, for completion. They had gifted him with an enigma for the ages: to know the lost recesses, the abandoned caverns of his cleft heart. To know in present tense another’s passion, to somehow reconcile this with tragedies past. To know of himself, through the challenge of accepting, if not retuning, another’s love. 

Dioren prayed, with renewed conviction, that wholeness might be his at last. 

* * *

One Week Later

A humid, yet gusty breeze blew through the open doors of their bedchamber balcony. The cindery scent of brimstone, swept down from the mines upon distant Taniquetil, laced the effervescent smell of moss, moist bark, and ripe fertility from the forest far below. This confluence of odors, climates, and conflicting environments had moved them to build their talan so high, their floors ever flirting with the unreachable treetops. Warriors at heart, they loved to watch the thunderclouds roll forth like a filmy gray infantry, feel the bruise of the wind at full blast, watch over their resplendent wood as if perched in the crow’s nest of a ship. The experience of this seasonal clash was of elemental necessity to them, as vital as the reaffirmation of their binding vow through bodily love.

A relentless pursuit that still, after centuries of devotion, kept them as dewy as newlyweds. As one of the veteran couples that inhabited the vale, Glorfindel and Elladan were not immune to the pride they undoubtedly drew from the admiration of younger lovers at the strength and the affection of their binding. Their once troubled and, unfortunately, oft recycled tale was referenced on countless occasions by those spurned, stricken, and anguished by the one they held dearest of all. Many of these fledgling suitors, in their frantic desperation, would be pushed to themselves seek out one of the hardy pair, for advisement unparalleled among brash, soldier-types. Glorfindel in particular found this phenomenon highly amusing, as he had been by far the least valiant, the most mule-headed, and in truth the ignorant beloved to Elladan’s grieving trueheart. Yet he would neither discourage these younglings from consulting him; he would merely take careful pains to give credit where it would forever be due, to his strident, gallant, and gorgeous mate. 

When summoned to Dioren’s aid, however, Glorfindel had finally recognized that none but he alone was as expertly suited to advise the fraught, beleaguered young peredhil. 

The mellifluous scent of yasbrinth blossom mingled with the breeze, emanating from the oil - sizzling with the restorative herbs mixed into its concoction - being so sensuously kneaded over his skin. His beloved mate, knowing instinctively how the last week’s trials had taxed him both mentally and physically, had arranged one of his all-too-rare evenings of slow, luxurious massage. Elladan had worked over enough muscle-strained soldiers in his time to be both deft and proficient at his task. Better yet, he adored his husband such that even the most brusque stroke was as intimate as a caress between them, a show of care both accomplished and tender. 

Though Elladan’s intent was for the moment remedial and relaxing, not seductive, he could not help but pepper Glorfindel’s broad shoulders, crowning mane, or soft of knee with the occasional kiss. As lionhearted as they come in all other aspects of his life, Elladan was ceaselessly unmoored by the abject worship of his mate and effected it relentlessly, such as with these stolen kisses. In private quarters, he was often as pliant as a lamb, though ever driven by the insatiable need to be possessed by his beloved, to be filled with him, to be of one flaming soul. Once embroiled in lovemaking, this sense of urgency never entirely quit him; when gifting his husband with such chaste ministrations as this, such spontaneous flutters of affection were expected, as his fierce love could never entirely be tamed. 

Glorfindel was only too thrilled to give himself to such an impassioned, madly amorous lover, especially after such an exhausting time; possibly the most strenuous of his entire rebirth. 

That Dioren resisted treatment with a ferocity that tripled his own, in more unenlightened times, only rallied him further to his cause. To be sure, Dioren’s resistance was all the more impossible to combat for its being unconscious, but Glorfindel had not faced the fiery Balrog that was his own fears of earnest, eternal love of another without gaining a considerable emotional arsenal. Thus, as Dioren’s emergent self feinted at control, retreated into his fugues, and struck out through haunting visions from the wasteland of his early memories, Glorfindel patiently and effectively smoked him out. His accidental eviscerating of Rohrith had forced Dioren into a pledge of compliance so unimpeachable as to be nearly binding. In but a week’s time, their compact, which involved visceral sessions of meditation, lucid hypnotism, and the exorcism of his keenest fears, had budded, if not entirely born, some embittered fruit. With cautious, considerate steps, they traveled together through the labyrinthine layers of trauma hidden within Dioren’s past and present existence, a much more convoluted structure of afflictions, incidents, and parental rejection than Glorfindel had ever thought possible among one of elf kind. 

Dioren, however, was not entirely an elf, a fact which had caused him to be inflicted with the scorn of his peers in the formative years of both his lives. Twas little wonder that he reinvented himself, when the chance arose, as Rohrith’s shadow; too needful of support to be fool enough to reject his friendship, but yet too besieged by thoughts of unworthiness to believe himself equal. For this one of so many reasons, he could not embrace the love Rohrith so blatantly bore him, nor the long-dormant feelings Glorfindel suspected had been kindled within him by this latest incident. From what little Dioren had remembered of his past life – at present, merely brief glimpses of happier times and a spare sketch of his home environment – Glorfindel could intuit that his elfling self had been no great lover of maids, but whenever he urged Dioren into the shadier areas of his memory, where lurked events both sultry and brute, he instantly snapped out of his trance, or seeped into a fugue. 

Dioren himself had become frustrated at this tendency, as it kept him from knowing what had incited his attack on Rohrith; though ever was he hotly aggravated by his weakness and his indecipherability. His mounting dissatisfaction had greatly impeded their progress that very afternoon. Dioren had kept vigil by Rohrith’s bedside the previous night long and, rendered insomniac by stressing over his friend’s yet enfeebled state, had once again viciously whipped himself from within for this unpreventable action and its grievous consequences. That morn, he had burst into their private session room famished for some sliver of result, some crumb of progress, but his own riled attitude had even further destabilized his typically brittle command over his pernicious senses. By the end of the day, he had beat his knuckles bloody, ripping the skin clean off the mounds of his left hand with a deft punch to the wall, after wrenching awake from a foggy vision of a dulcet walk through the Mirkwood. Part of Dioren understood that his psyche would not be fully penetrated without first embracing patience in their explorations, but his nightly visitations with a slumbering Rohrith always revivified his sense of emergency, his need to know in an instant what might take months, if not years, to uncover. 

Worse yet, Glorfindel was nearly certain that there was some errant fact, some missing link in the playing out of their relationship that further impelled his charge to so relentlessly chase true recovery. When directly confronted, Dioren had only barked: ‘Is the maiming of my dearest friend not cause enough?’ Glorfindel’s suspicions remained intact, but he knew better than to press the issue. Dioren was beset by a relentless downpour of pressure from sources well-known and only guessed at, as his counselor and as his guardian he would not add to the will-battering surge. 

This had led Glorfindel to a regretful, but crucial, decision. Initially, he had been inordinately reluctant to refuse Dioren the right to see Rohrith, despite the weighty urging of his Lord. There had been no objections from Elrohir, Legolas, Nenuial, or his twin brothers as to the fact that Rohrith’s attacker be allowed into his recovery room, all were too enlightened for such preposterous talk and knew well it would be beyond the patient’s own wishes. Elrond, however, had ventured the theory that Rohrith’s progress might be aversely affected by his friend. They were, after all, thick as thieves, and Rohrith was perhaps perilously aware of his friend’s suffering. Knowing the brash young elf as they did, he would no doubt force his own progress, anxious as he would be to attend to his guilt-wrecked friend. The point, though a valid one, was rendered moot by, of all things, scheduling. As their sessions spanned the day long, unbroken except for a brief noontime meal taken in the room itself, Dioren would only be able to visit Rohrith at night. Rohrith’s condition improved quite slowly, to everyone’s great concern, so he was rarely awake past late afternoon and, in his few moments of sentience, was appeased by brief tales of Dioren’s renewed dedication to his own wholeness. Elrond had come to fear that his grandson was stricken by his friend’s absence and this impeded his recovery, but Brithor and Ciryon had quickly disabused him of this notion. They assured him that their brother was more or less spiritually peaceful; the injury had been severe. 

The time had come, however, to distance the two friends. Dioren suffered too savagely at the constant reminder of his witless attack on his friend, he required sanctuary from this particular pain, from the bleak self-image conjured of his bisected self. Glorfindel would require his company on a brief expedition to the shore, merely for a fortnight, where Elladan was needed to inspect the state of construction on the new portside town. Tathren would be there, as well, to counsel his charge on the realities of a peredhil’s voracious libido, come majority, and to suggest some remedial activities tailored to the further realities of his affliction. This, Glorfindel hoped, would be a welcome distraction from more trenchant issues, as well as a chance for some necessary physical exertion. No peredhil of Dioren’s insurgent development needed to spend days at a time cooped up in a middling room, when there could be surf to swim, game to hunt, and a wide expanse of beach over which to vent his frustrations. If Dioren could be convinced of its benefits, Glorfindel did not doubt that he could reach a plateau of stability on this short trip, perhaps even a small measure of inner-revolution. 

His own lagging spirits buoyed by this hopefulness, Glorfindel hushed his racing mind, instead focusing on the sultry sweep of Elladan’s now covetous touch over his firm buttocks. He thought of a time when he himself had rather pig-headedly refused the blessing of such pleasures, then thanked the gods for giving him will enough to best his fears and to embrace the peerless love of his forever mate. Without the warmth of his Elladan to berth him, life would be harsh indeed. 

As he caught his husband’s balm-slick hand, as he teasingly caressed its fragrant palm, he vowed that he would not rest until his stubborn charge also knew the rapture of such a love.

For he was convinced that Dioren’s hassled spirit already knew of its mate, even if the half-elf did not.

* * * 

Without so much as a creak of the door, Elrohir slipped into the Healing Halls. With careful steps, he glided over to the entrance to the patient’s ward. He loomed for a time under the archway, observing his dearly son’s restless repose awhile, caught in rapt examination of his current condition.

Rohrith had struggled into wakefulness late the previous morn, flush with a light fever. His wound burned and seethed something awful, which promised of its mending but was a constant torment to one already so overwhelmed by fatigue. His proud son, impetuous as ever despite his injury’s waylaying, had nearly bit his tongue through when his grandsire had applied a new, more potent wrap that afternoon, swallowing curses and almost losing consciousness. Unlike the last seven days, however, the simmering pain had kept him from necessary rest, though sleep pressed just as weightily upon him. Ragged with exhaustion, he had violently abused his grandsire when a draught was suggested; its giddy effects so shaming to him that he would rather suffer prolonged wakefulness than be so idiotically besotted by false mirth. Elrohir had tucked his shocking reaction away for later reflection and urged his father, whose eyes brimmed with tears at his grandson’s scathing words though he knew too well of their incidental provenance, to leave Rohrith to his brothers’ care. Curling up beside their upstart twin, Ciryon and Brithor had cooed and petted their brother into a deep, restorative sleep, from which he had only emerged that following noon. 

With twilight misting the horizon anew, Elrohir had taken up the task of appeasing Rohrith this eve. As the fever had persisted on that afternoon, his son’s focus had been fitful. Nenuial, who had sat with him for a longly time, told Elrohir that he had babbled on about random, unreasonable subjects, such as the state of dwaven government, the uselessness of hedges in elven design, and the need for more birdbaths in their gardens. Unable to cradle her hurting child, she had vigilantly listened to his every mumbled word, though inwardly despairing for him. Having shouldered the loss of her mate, she was deathly frightened that she would loose her son, as well, and with him her two other triplet treasures. Her giving heart was too goodly made to conscience such a truth as her son’s near disembowelment; in private consultation, she had raged at Elrohir and Legolas’ allowance that Dioren visit him each night. Elrohir had always known a mother’s love was not a thing to be crossed, nor denied; he had sharply questioned his own motives even as he fought to convince her. 

He questioned them still. 

Every flinch of Rohrith’s clenched body screamed of the pain that wrecked him. His limber frame had withered to a skeletal emaciation. The blunt angles of his face made him appear, perversely, all the more wolfish. Were it not for the opulence of his darkly ringed eyes and the voluptuous snarl of his pale lips, his severe manner would seem entirely predatory, excepting that he had not force enough to rise from his own bed. Though in this blatant weakness he was taciturn and maudlin, he craved affection as never before, hating isolation and demanding near constant contact from family, trusted friends, and even some of his nursemaids. His fever was accompanied by shivering chills, for which his grandmothers were even now furiously knitting the finest of woolen blankets to cover him. 

Yet his brash Rohrith was rarely so easily satisfied. While these external and injury-born ailments no doubt afflicted him, Elrohir had longly pondered whether they were entirely the cause of his inherent restlessness. Rohrith pretended contentment and approval well enough when the subject of Dioren’s sessions had been broached, but the memory of his friend’s accidental betrayal must still concern him. Though the moments when his mind was clear enough to properly unravel these issues were but fleeting, there was no telling what sort of bleak visions might be haunting his son’s dreamscape, disrupting his rest in vulnerable moments and inciting him to wake to the very face of his anguish. Dioren had reported no awakenings during his nightly audiences with his somnolent friend and Elrohir believed he would not fail to do so, but yet… his lassitude lingered, his wound was terribly slow to heal, his fever would not abate. He staved off wellness as if by need of respite; from what, Elrohir must uncover. He must rail against his dimming light. 

Rohrith marked him with woozy eyes, smirked softly. 

“Ada,” he beckoned, reaching a hand out for him. 

A paternal charge fired within him; he went to his son’s bedside and eased down beside him. Aglow with affection, he kissed the brow still beaded with perspiration, tucking about the frail frame as best he could. Rohrith lolled his face in Elrohir’s direction, his droopy eyes begging for whatever tale, song, or soothing might trick him into sleep. If these proved ineffectual, he would take some coddling; he was long past his earlier, misbegotten dignity, when promised his father’s warmth and care. Elrohir effected a brief examination, before stroking long, rhythmic touches over his son’s sodden chest, hoping to woo his exhaustion into complacence. 

“Though I do not care for its sallow gaunt,” the elf-knight murmured to him. “Your face has whitened some. The fever may be close to breaking.” He paused but long enough to wipe away a wisp of hair stuck to his cheek, then continued his ministrations. “How do you fare, nin bellas?”

“As ever,” Rohrith rasped, trying to relax his body enough to indulge in Elrohir’s balming presence. “I would be galloping across the meadows with my swordbrothers or dressing for a night of uproarious debating, but just the mere thought of such activities curdles my stomach. I pray for sleep… though I would like to wash. Or swim. I must be rank.” 

“Nay, you smell as sweet as jasmine,” Elrohir chuckled, gesturing towards the bouquet Nenuial had brought him that very afternoon. 

Rohrith himself coughed up a laugh. 

“Twas for this Nana brought them?” he protested wanly. “I should have suspected…” 

“Are they not your preference?” Elrohir asked, wondering that he had been so mistaken. “Twas for this she gifted you.” 

“Aye, they are indeed,” Rohrith responded, already heartened by his father’s closeness. “They summon up visions of my guild, at Gondolen. When seated by the west windows in the common room, their fragrance drifts in from the fields beyond… I wish I could be there again, Ada.” 

“One day, ioneth, you will return,” Elrohir assured him. 

“Twas such a golden time,” Rohrith commented. “I discovered… my passion, I suppose. Or perhaps the depth of it.” 

Elrohir was strikingly tempted to inquire as to which passion it was his son had discovered within him, but instead chose a more gentle, though straightforward, tact. 

“I have brought news,” he began. “Though I fear it might pain as much as hearten, so I am loathe to inflict it upon you.” 

“Do not spare me,” Rohrith insisted. “If I cannot sleep, then I would be somehow engaged, other than in anguish. You would speak of Dioren, I presume. What has come about?”

Elrohir could not help but marvel at his son’s acuity, even under such strain, and was honest with him. 

“Glorfindel feels his progress is presently imperiled,” he explained. “By such simple conditions as his everyday exposure to our kin, to what Dioren feels is our scorn, thought I swear we want only for his wellness.”

“It matters not what you would, Ada,” Rohrith acknowledged. “He would suffer his action. For too long a time, but that is his way.”

“But if he is allowed to escape awhile,” Elrohir pointed out. “Perhaps he will profit from some space, some breathing air.”

“Aye, that is well reasoned,” he sagely considered. “For where will he depart?”

“He will accompany Glorfindel and Elladan to the coast,” Elrohir told him. “For a fortnight, to begin, but if his continued sessions prove extremely beneficial, then perchance for longer.” 

“That is also well,” Rohrith answered, without a flinch of emotion. “Ada-Fin clearly thinks of naught but his betterment. He will prove an able guide. I pray their venture will succeed, if not immediately, then in time. He deserves…he deserves to know himself.” This said, Rohrith sighed softly, pressing his hot forehead to his father’s cheek. “Ada… will you sing for me?” 

Elrohir ignored his son’s request for a long minute, stunned at his so casual acceptance of the absence of his most cherished of friends. He had expected a minor mutiny at his announcement, even with Rohrith so sluggish; a volley of protests at the very least or a plea to delay such a hasty maneuver, but never such quiet resolution, pronounced as if by rote. Had the incident so blackened Dioren in Rohrith’s regard that he could so frivolously dismiss their near-sacred friendship? Was Rohrith so needful of respite from his never-ending vigilance over his friend’s safekeeping that he would bear through an indefinite time of estrangement? Though at the mercy of any of the above scenarios, Elrohir could not entirely digest that Rohrith would be so self-protective. No sickness nor severe wounding could effect such upheaval in the emboldened world of the unshakable young elf he had reared. 

Elrohir suddenly perceived this prolonged period of recuperation in a broader scope. 

“Dioren is at your bedside nightly,” Elrohir noted, with feigned nonchalance. “Have your brothers told you this? He cannot sleep himself, so he waits in vigil over you.” 

“He is… ever true,” Rohrith responded, with evident difficulty. “As well as in the grip of remorse, no doubt, though I forgave him in the surgery. Not that he acted with deliberate malice… I wish… *saes*, Ada, help me sleep.”

“Will you verily sleep?” he asked him. “Or will you fret? Will you pine, when I am gone, to save face before your sire and keep him from succoring you proper?” 

“I will not pine for what… what I have lost forever,” Rohrith bleat. “No amount of succor will change that I am a fool, a blind, stubborn fool who… who has clung, for decades, to an impossibility. A mirage.” 

“Your close friendship is no mirage,” Elrohir insisted, cinching his hold about him though he knew this must cause some pain. “Nor was his devotion to you, these last nights.” 

“Then he is a greater fool than I,” Rohrith huffed, his black eyes brimming from frustration, from every sort of illness imaginable. “His guilt would not allow him to do otherwise. Perhaps this absence will indeed be beneficial, will force realization upon him.” 

“What is he to realize?” Elrohir inquired patiently, prodding as gently as he dared.

“That tis *I* who am unworthy of *him*!” Rohrith groaned, the tears spilling as they did not even under the surgeon’s knife. 

“How could one so kindly as you,” Elrohir soothed him. “So goodhearted towards one shunned by all others, so devoted to his betterment and so committed to his uncertain future be deemed wanting of worth in any capacity? You have been like a brother to him.” 

“For years I have misled him,” Rohrith retorted, in a cloggy wheeze. “All my efforts towards him were false. I did not want for his heart to be secured by another, so I effected all in my power to keep him by my side. Every stride towards his recovery was spurned on by my wrongful belief that if he was whole then… then… I have burdened him with the knowledge of my unanswerable desires-“

“Ioneth, you have never burdened Dioren,” Elrohir countered. “If ought, he is too dense to perceive them.“

With a grimace of immense, undoing torment, Rohrith whispered: “*Nay*, Ada.” When he had Elrohir’s rapt attention anew, he hushly continued, as if delivering his own eulogy. “The sleeping draught addled my mind… I was tipsy, I could not think… I do not know what I thought to say… but I confessed it. I confessed… I am not rightly sure, but I may have… I may have kissed him...” The shame of it walloped the fragile young elf like a punch to the face. Rohrith sobbed as if struck a deadly blow, awash with cruel grief for himself, for the confusion he must have inflicted so witlessly upon Dioren, for the ruin of their dearest of friendships. Elrohir clung to him as he quaked, unsure of what words could possibly sate this rage of sorrow, could possibly convince his son that Dioren would not judge him for this one slip of tongue. “He must loathe me. Tis best that we are parted.”

“Best for his sanity?” Elrohir questioned, with utmost tenderness. “Or best for your pride, my dear one?” 

“Ada, tis no matter of pride,” Rohrith sniffled, as he burrowed his face into his father’s neck. “I have betrayed my own pact with myself, never to burden Dioren with my care. Now, when he is in most need of me…” 

“Yet he has flourished in Glorfindel’s care,” Elrohir remarked. “And may find his path to wellness through those sessions. Why should you be responsible for his constant occupation, for his every thought or feeling? He is an elf of his own making, same as you, my heart. You have been the guiding light in his second life, true, but you are not the only light. Perhaps you have kept him… too close. He needs to feel the support of his community. He needs to come to the realization, at his own pace, that we all adore him and want for his future. Tis true enough that he will want for you, especially in this most troubled of times… but if he holds your company so dear, then he will not quit you now. You are more to him than a friend, ioneth, this you have ever known.” After some thought, Elrohir added: “Indeed, it may be you who has need of him, before long, if he does not come to return your affection. His hotly-held friendship may be all that can save you…” 

“Ada, I will heal,” Rohrith swore to him. “I am not one for Mandos. I have merely been… waylaid, for a month or so. I will soon be back to galloping and debate.” 

“A father’s care will heed no promise until the deed is done,” Elrohir hectored good-naturedly. “And you are restored to wellness, my precious son.” 

“A father’s care is of great comfort,” Rohrith thanked him, barely stifling a yawn. “Even to this too-prideful son.” 

“Not too prideful,” Elrohir reminded him. “Just enough to strain himself.” After plucking another kiss from that sticky brown, he extrapolated his point. “The heart is a resilient muscle. It will bear through any burden, any strain, for a chance at love. Dioren may be conflicted in his soul, but fear not, for his heart is as strong as any. Before long, he will learn how to keep you locked there.” With a soft sigh, he stretched Rohrith back out into an easier position for him, though still nestled tight in his arms. “Now, tell me, what shall I sing?” 

“A ballad of mannish lore,” Rohrith requested, already sinking sweetly into that warm embrace. “Learn me of… their wants and woes…” 

Before Elrohir could sing a note, his son found slumber at last. 

* * *

Several Days Later

Dioren grappled towards wakefulness as if rappelling towards a towering summit, his worn body weighing him down. The wind that ruffled the hide flaps of his tent also wafted salty gusts of sea air about, a rousing scent if every there was. The crisp promise of morning, of a bleached sand beach, of gnarled coral reefs, of a brisk swim in the skipping tide and of the sooty drink made of brewed beans that Glorfindel preferred swept his senses clean of slumber’s dust and clog, compelled him to wake. 

With a groan and a flex, he did so; the invigorating rush of blood pollinated his burgeoning peredhil body, caused a rose-red erection to bloom amidst his full-flowering loins. The effect of awaking so contentedly, with nary a whiff of the acrid scent of fear-sweat about him, was somehow erotic to him. Though hardly novel to one of his impending majority, his emphatic response to even the simplest of pleasures baffled him entirely. When not in the throes of a vision or dumbed by a fugue, in these last days his newly meaty shaft was in a state of near-perpetual engorgement. Perhaps the melancholy clime he inhabited of late made leisurely moments all the more stimulating to his overwrought mind, but this did not account for how effortlessly he could be deployed. To say nothing of the vertiginous dreams, which sizzled as if his very veins coursed with broiling lava: bodies tumbling about with skins steamed scarlet, singeing tongues lapping over every possible orifice or tumescence, manhandling such as he’d never experienced with a maid, pinching, kneading, wringing, and worrying galore. 

But then, not one voluptuous maiden gambled through his sultry dreamscape. Not a one. 

Though his subconscious had flirted with these nightly preoccupations in Telperion, they had come to full, firm embodiment here by the shore, once he had ceased his day-long sessions with Glorfindel and been allowed the mornings to roam free. The plethora of builders, seafarers, and consultants had done much to inspire his rabid imagination, power-ripped frames he would not have given a second glance ten days before. Yet here, with his sentience keen, his spells considerably abated, his fugues tremendously shortened, and his whipping shame cast aside for adventure, his body craved their attentions with a ferocity previously unknown to him in carnal affairs, his loins knotted in an altogether more fiery pain when he forced vital restraint upon himself. 

For he was ill-prepared for such indulgence, nor was he entirely sure he wanted to so indulge. His body hungered voraciously for a brute coupling, true. He was *aware* of the males around him as never before: the maddening musk that hung about them, the affability with which they charmed all and sundry, the easy camaraderie that instantly put one at ease. He regarded both strangers and familiars as if a veil had been lifted from his sight, seeing comeliness in a face he’d confronted a thousand times before or marking a taunting swagger in a step he’d met on the training fields on countless occasions. Though tormented by lust nightly and often provoked while in their very midst, he was far too unlearned in the ways of male loving to bed one, nor did he esteem such a venture to be entirely beneficial to his gentle progress. These were, after all, the very same species of elf who had shunned him the better part of his two childhoods, so any hunter worth his wiles would proceed with caution. 

Not to mention that, despite the swampy marsh that was his bed roll upon waking each morn, incidentally aired-out by an erectly-propped canopy, the sudden onset of such previously unattested desires for males greatly, *intensely* distressed him. Dioren was not such a fool as to ignore the obvious evidence that Rohrith’s druggy compliments had struck a live nerve within him. This fact in itself, however, only led to further confusion. Could he desire his friend in such an unsightly fashion? Rohrith had certainly played a part in some of his more volcanic dreams, but his was hardly a dominant presence, either in slumber-fantasy or in his libidinous self-explorations. How could he justify explorations with other elves, when Rohrith’s regard had been so flagrantly revealed to him and, despite his friend’s own protests, he owed him no small measure of opportunity? Did he even want to try out these insurgent passions with any lover, when calamity might strike, bold and deadly? Of greatest import: how had his feelings towards his friend evolved since this timely, though still shocking confession and could he even think of bedding him without being sure of returning his love? 

Dioren was yet bewildered by so many issues surrounding his rebirth, his former life, and his present circumstance that he could not give either credence nor credit to any of his emotions, not in such a period of upheaval, of blindsidingly rapid change. In just the ten days since Rohrith had declared himself, he had replayed his astonishingly shrewd remarks a million times over, drawing insight into his own fraught spirit, into his earlier self-protective actions and into his ritual techniques for the maintenance of some frail stability within. These had been extremely useful in his sessions with Glorfindel. His last spell, so perilous to Rohrith, had opened up a portal to his past existence he could now journey through with some slight measure of control. Through the empowerment of lucid meditation, he lately revisited various scenes, situations, and environments from his first elflinghood. While all of these had currently proved only positive, both he and Glorfindel felt some kind of breakthrough was imminent. 

His raging lusts, in their own embarrassing way, had helped him all the more. While his dreams were a haze of foggy images and burning sensation, through self-pleasuring he had discovered that he could forge a link to his former self, who had desired ellon almost uniquely and even, he believed, physically coupled with one. The fever of such scorching emotions summoned this tender one back to him, yet another positive effect of his once-tragic spell. The wholeness he experienced when in such thrall caused him to stave off orgasm as long as possible, though in completion he was flooded with both ecstasy and awareness of his entire self. He had never thought that self-release could be remedial, but then he had also never felt such hope for his own eventual oneness as he did presently. 

That all this was due to Rohrith - the initial spell, the acute appraisal of his desire’s repression, the revolutionary sessions with Glorfindel - only pricked him all the more, gnawing at his sense of devotion and nagging at his ever-ready guilt. He had been a friend beyond compare for a century’s span, ever giving, every kind, but Dioren did not want to recompense him for his heart with further agony, further deceit. Though he adored him as dearly as a friend could and did indeed feel a too-tempting desire for him, he did not, if he was sharply honest, know love for him. Perhaps he could, with time; at present all was dark and uncertain. Yet he could not satisfy his friend with vagaries and vows would be unconscionable before he had achieved his wholeness.

The rub was, he earnestly wondered if such wholeness could be his without the sterling help of his friend. 

This was, however, a matter that perhaps should be put to Glorfindel. There was also the hard state of his stiffness to consider, which had yet to be indulged by even a graze of fingertips over its bulbous head. The chance such needfulness presented for further spiritual exploration, as well as physical relief, could not be ignored; not that one so aroused as he could possibly ignore his turgidity. As he and Glorfindel were to hunt this morn, his activities would be packed with necessary exertion, hardly the moment to sneak behind a tree and abuse oneself. He must revel, then, in indulgence, drawing out this most sensual of acts with patience and skill, until he could stand no more stimulation and must complete himself. 

After exposing himself entirely to the moist air of his tent, he smoothed eager hands over his planes of skin, bulges of muscle, and new-grown thatches of hair. His physical development rushed on apace, every dawn seemed to herald another change. Tathren had counseled him to monitor his progress and to appreciate his transformation, to see his brawn as a special gift, not as a lack of elven grace. Unlike Tathren’s bashfulness, Dioren was proud of his potent physique; he had always been considered meek, vacuous, a walking specter, so to now be heftier than most elves suited him quite well. 

That this bulk also vivified his dreams of brute coupling only added to the allure. As his hand snaked down to palm himself, he admired his greatened girth and his elongated member, other fringe benefits of manly provenance. With a purring sigh, he lost himself to the hot, coursing pleasure of perfectly timed strokes, his half-mast lids helping him to dip into his dreamscape. Almost instantly, his other self flared within, filling his mind with bawdy thoughts, long-lost sensations, and a completion far more spiritual than carnal, though both were flamed by desire. The youngling’s emotions were kin to those of flush, gangly adolescence, when even a chaste thought could turn instantaneously florid. Dioren fed off the rapaciousness of this pyre-boy; *he* had been a bold one, unafraid to gawk at those he thought impressively ravishable or to imagine himself sexually engaged with them. He thought of the rough-hewn seafarers that had landed the day before, of their sinuous bodies and of their rope-burned hands as he quickened his pace, fisting himself with abandon and bucking hard into every gorgeous stroke. He felt the fangs of impending release bite beneath his purpled bollocks, swollen fat as plums, pounded himself as he groaned savagely, needing just one last thought, one last smoldering image to finish him. 

He thought of Rohrith, sword in hand, poised to strike viciously. 

He spent like a geyser, coughing and moaning until he had been milked of every last shot of seed, which streaked across his belly like the festering stripes of a lash. He brimmed full of the heady sense of wholeness, stealing more slivers of his old personality to settled into his skin. He found he could almost sleep again, but for the speckles of sun that seared through the hide’s sewing, the rakish smell of the sea beckoning to him. 

Fumbling groggily to his feet, Dioren did not ponder that final image too intently. He had sea to swim, shore to scour for crabs, and his own sanity to consider. 

*

He emerged from the ocean swells like some mer-creature of myth, sinuous legs tangled with seaweed and flaxen hair fanned across his muscular back. His swimming trunks stuck to his slender hips like a second skin, though their silvery-blue color did little to camouflage the considerable endowments of the mature peredhil form. He brusquely wrung out his sodden hair, then coolly slicked it back, before sopping up the bank of sand to their humble camp. 

Glorfindel awaited him with a cup of the bean-brew, its pungent odor and velvet texture the perfect antidote to the frigid ocean. With a nod of greeting, he threw a woolly towel over himself and gladly accepted the cup, huddled over one of the hearthfire logs as the Balrog-slayer smeared some jam over toasted lembas for him. Knowing that his charge had never truly experienced the indulgences of parental care, Glorfindel and Elladan had been only too keen to dote upon him, though not without good reason. His fugues may no longer test the endurance of even the most patient guardian and his spells may only have involved some vigorous log-chopping, but Dioren’s sweetly character still inspired a constant, mellifluous compassion in those that cared for him. As longtime parents, the couple could not help but give quite generously of themselves, hardly immune to the empathy his fits and struggles evoked within them. 

As if in testament to this, Dioren spied that his clothes had been washed, dried, and waited for him by his tent, a cheery note from Elladan awaiting him atop. Though he could not bring himself to resist, quietly object, or even dissuade his guardians from such surreptitious treats, neither could he come to rely on them; once they returned to the vale, he would claim his independence anew. Yet their giving attitude did hearten him, such that he had realized how empty his early life had felt, without his mother’s warmth to succor him. His first turn at elflinghood was overshadowed by his father’s rejections, his second by his being the cause of his mother’s ill health; Dioren had not appreciated how this had darkened him until he was affected by Elladan and Glorfindel’s light. Even now Glorfindel, though respecting his need for some quiet introspection, tucked down onto the log close beside him, his very presence emanating warmth, understanding, and welcome. It was all Dioren could do not to set down his plate and curl up against him, nagging him impishly to tell him a familiar tale. 

Yet perhaps he could, instead, inquire after a long sought-out confidence from him. 

He turned towards his guardian and opened his stance, to invite conversation. Glorfindel, with an ingratiating smile, waited him out. He had come to treasure these fireside chats between them, with Elladan already away at work and the morning long to tease out all the delicacies of the problem. Dioren inwardly debated all the different tacts he could take to cautiously approach the sensitive matter, as he was a philosopher of some finesse, but in the end chose a more blunt route. He would have his answers presently, not in a long hour’s time. 

“Glorfindel?” he queried, though knowing well he had his attention. “Will you hear me on a matter of some… vulgarity?” 

“Any matter that concerns you is of interest, pen-neth,” the Balrog-slayer assured him. Though he was far beyond his elfling years, Glorfindel employed a diminutive endearment with him, as he could not even casually name him as a son. Dioren well understood the tribute behind the appellation and had never objected to its use. 

“Very well,” he smirked, then charged forth. “What is it like to be breached?”

Glorfindel spit out his coffee in a soaring arc, but had the wherewithal to laugh at himself. After some necessary slurps and swallows, he reflected upon the various ideas and emotions that underlay his question.

“In earlier times,” Glorfindel replied. “With my lovers at Gondolin, it was but a trifle. I liked the game of it; the chase, the pounce. I kept no one lover past his due and was neither of finicky palate. Ellon, ellyth, some mannish nobles of both genders, I went only by allure. And willingness, of course, but even proficiency mattered little. I knew how to teach. I did not, however, know how to love. After our lengthy, near-tragic courtship - which I am sure wagging tongues have well appraise you of - when I first lay with my Elladan… this was no trifle. Tremendous, enrapturing, and altogether sundering, perhaps, but certainly no common thing. I had never known the like, and proved terribly ill-prepared. Thankfully, he knew implicitly how to ply me, though anything he would have done would have finished me, I was so raw with need of him. Dire circumstances also surrounded us; Elladan was of poor health and terribly weak. It took us years to mate with frivolity, without some sense of urgency about the act, as if some calamity might break us apart though we were already bound years before. Despite the fact that I was by far the elder, he was my guide in loving. He taught me every thing of love.” 

“There is naught but the most tender love between you,” Dioren remarked. “One would never even think of your past troubles, lest they knew of them beforehand. You appear… blissfully matched.” 

“He is my own, my soul and every speck of my heart,” Glorfindel reminisced, though eventually pried his thoughts from his mate, back to the present concern. “His oft mercurial nature marked well how you goggled the sailors yesterday, as if catnip to a mountain lion. He noted as much as we lay abed.” 

“They proved… intriguing,” Dioren feinted, though not with much accomplishment. “I find, to my dismay, that my tastes have turned somewhat brute, as Tathren predicted. I have come to desire males.”

After a time, Glorfindel asked: “Does this distress you? Are you shamed by such a want?”

“Nay,” Dioren answered. “But I fear I am in no state for dalliances, though my body hungers with a previously unknown fervor. Tathren did counsel some indulgence… but I cannot see how this can be possible, what with my spells and fugues. Worse still, the elfling surges within me when I think on lying with males. If his knives should come out…”

“You fear being afflicted in the performance of the act?” Glorfindel digested more than asked. “Doing further harm?”

“I do,” Dioren whispered, disheartened. “Yet in some ways… I also fear not being afflicted. What does it bode if I feel… nothing at all, with another? If I can only find fulfillment with the phantom presence in my lucid visions of old?”

“You will not feel nothing,” Glorfindel insisted. “Of this you can be assured. One cannot be unaffected by a breaching. There is such oneness… even if there is no heart’s love, there is ample surrender. In my own experience… it is entirely enrapturing, even performed for lust alone. I hope only that you might experience the act unburdened by haunting memory. You deserve to know such bliss in its purest form.” 

“I pray nightly for the chance,” Dioren told him, then, upon reflection. “With body as well as soul.”

“So we have well heard,” Glorfindel chuckled, merry at Dioren’s resultant blush. One should never speak of such things too seriously, even if the matter called for sobriety. “Though I am sure our own play could neither be ignored, as our children are so fond of informing us.”

“Tis well that you are yet so lively, after so many centuries of devotion,” Dioren commented, still ruddy as a peach. 

“I will share a wisdom with you, youngling,” Glorfindel grinned, quite enjoying the turn in their conversation. “Tis the very nature of a true-heated binding that the pleasure increases through the years of togetherness. As our souls become even more closely knit in their eternal search for complete oneness, our bodies meld even more explosively than in times past. Next year we will know even deeper satisfaction than this, and so on until the end of days. Our love is voracious, unquenchable and ever-yielding. I hope you might, one day, know such fulfillment as ours.” Dioren’s answer was implicit in his silence; *he* hoped but to survive the present year intact. Conscious of this, Glorfindel pressed on towards a remedy for his roving eye. “It has occurred, in my contemplation of the method of your affliction, that your most vicious spell may have been provoked by the disparate - but each in its own way affecting - elements of your environment.” Dioren grew attentive, so he continued to posit his theory. “You were slain by an orc’s blade, for instance, and you were engaged in swordplay.” 

“But I have rallied countless times without incident,” Dioren countered. 

“Aye, but so furiously?” Glorfindel wondered aloud. “The aggression of your maneuvers may have instigated your vision. And have you never considered why you take so well to the sword, when in your earlier years you were an archer? This smarts of vengeance.” Dioren started at this suggestion, his reason fully engaged. “But this is not our present concern… As I say, each of the elements all conspired to propel you back into memory, to experience a past attack anew. The sword, for one. The aggression and speed of play, for another. The murky woods of that morn, a third, and… do you see?” 

“Nay, I do not see,” Dioren shrugged, after some examination. “Which is the fourth element?” 

“Desire,” Glorfindel spoke softly. 

Dioren gaped outright, though could not rightly dismiss the notion. When he inwardly revisited Glorfindel’s suggestion, he hotly felt the truth of it. His desire for Rohrith, combined with all those other elements so like that forgotten day in Mirkwood with his dearly suitor-friend, had brought on a spell such as he’d never experienced before, which had lead to so many consequences for him. Facilitated access to his past memories. His work with Glorfindel. The knowledge of his preference for male elves. Rohrith’s confession… 

Glorfindel, as his healer, knew of all the fraught occurrences of the last ten days, even that stunning moment in the Healing Halls when his friend had… had kissed him. In truth, he knew of the kiss, but knew not the effect it had on Dioren, how he had been maddened by his friend’s taste and longed for the scorch of that tongue in his most intimate places. Fearing he would be pressed into an admission of a love he did not actually feel, believing that his response to the moment would be gravely misinterpreted in Rohrith’s favor, and trying somewhat vainly to protect his friend from his fumblings, he had mislead his guardian.

Glorfindel sage face, however, currently showed no signs of being at all deceived as to his covetous reaction to Rohrith’s giddy overture. 

Dioren knew, then, where the Balrog-slayer was leading him. 

“I have burdened him enough,” he insisted forcefully. “He, too, requires vital time to heal, perhaps more vital to his survival than wholeness to my own. He has been my champion for a century entire. He needs renewal, spiritual renewal, not further heartbreak.” 

“He would be the perfect candidate,” Glorfindel gently opposed. “With which to effect some discreet, comfortable, and all too necessary explorations into the sensual arts. Who better would know how to slowly immerse you in the realm of passion, so that your merging spirits do not revolt? Who better to succor you, or indeed to battle you down, if you should be provoked by a particularly striking act? Who else knows you so implicitly as to detect the merest tremor of discomfort, long before trouble rears up? And who… who adores you such that he would agree to undertake such a task without a flinch of fear, would devote himself entirely to its accomplishment and your unparalleled satisfaction? You must regard such a friend as a boon, a miraculous turn of fortune that you have one to care for you so deeply, and care so little for the trappings of your condition that he might risk the venture.” 

“Yet the risk is to his very precious heart,” Dioren underlined, his frustration mounting even as Glorfindel’s arguments stirred within. Yet Rohrith had been of titanic strength for him, and even in straights he could not fold so easily. “I would not seal his fate to fading, even for my own future.” 

“Can you be sure you would not come to love him?” Glorfindel responded, so delicately he might be speaking to a babe. “You are divided now, fraught with shame, anguish, lust… when you have settled into your skin, you may hear the pure tenor of his feeling and know this song within yourself.”

“And if I do not?!” Dioren shot back, bristling with emergent anger. “The friend who has succored me, has championed me through all my sorrows, is dead at my hand. No better than if I had slain him in the wood, that day.” 

“His fate is the same, whether you love with him or no,” Glorfindel reminded him. “If he loves you as no other, as he claims. If he has tempted fate already by grieving over you. A tryst may even prolong his life, give him the sustenance - through your passion - to survive his grief.” 

“Then our friendship would be sundered, at my breaking from him!” Dioren growled, aggravated beyond compare by his lack of palatable options. “How can I dare to lie with him knowing that he loves me? How can I tease him so, then shun him after? Have him know me intimately, see the need for his succor, the despair in my eyes, and have him believe, as he *will*, that my heart is there with me? Let him convince himself that I have changed mind, when all I truly promise is allegiance?”

“Let him make his own mind, then,” Glorfindel suggested. “Put the matter to him, honestly, with all the salient facts, and let him decide for himself if he could endure the loss.” 

“He will agree without question,” Dioren dismissed the ludicrous notion. “He never thinks of himself. Tis I who must play the gallant, on this most vital occasion. Tis I who must keep him safe from himself!”

Seeing that to push harder would only cause him to rile, Glorfindel demurred for the present time. 

Still, he had one last gambit to play. 

“Then who will sate you?” he asked plain, enveloping his words with the fondness he ever felt towards his charge. “Tathren says that your yearnings will only grow more ardent, before their fiery bloom at your majority. Has he not counseled a course of remedial bedding at least thrice a week, for sanity’s sake alone?” 

“I will bear through,” Dioren announced, immovable on the subject. “I must.” 

“A more practical plan would appease me some,” he smirked, as both took a hardy breath. 

“Tis not entirely dissimilar to the task before an elfling seeking his first majority,” Dioren remarked. “I am fragile, and tender. There must be one who could learn me with gentility and understand the complications of my fugues. An older elf, perhaps.” 

“It will grieve him, to know you have chosen another for lust alone,” Glorfindel pointed out. “I know from whence I speak, pen-neth. I, too, once faced a similar conundrum: to lie with my beloved and thereby make him vulnerable to a horrid fate, or to valiant keep from him and watch him suffer torment at my rejection.” 

“Which did you choose, Glorfindel?” Dioren wondered, impressed as ever by his wisdom. 

“For a while I blundered through the second,” Glorfindel replied. “Denying us both pleasure, unity, peace of mind. Love, in all its resplendent design. I nearly lost my Elladan – twas the very night ere his passing to Mandos – before I came to my senses and chose his love’s nourishment for my obstinate heart.” He finished their discussion with emphatic meaning to his words. “Before you err on the side of caution, which has its own valor and strife, know this: we have not been parted since, have lived every day in bliss. Eternally together and entirely whole.” 

Glorfindel smiled softly, then left him to his pondering.

 

End of Part Two


	9. Rohrith’s Tale, Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a companion piece to Of Elbereth’s Bounty, which takes place between the action of the final chapter (16) and the epilogue, set centuries in the future. Some of the characters from OEB deserved to have their own stories wrapped up outside of the actual narrative of that tale. This particular tale, along with Ciryon’s Tale, concern the majority rites of two of Tathren’s triplet brothers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimers: Characters belong to that wily old wizard himself, Tolkien the Wise, the granddad of all 20th century fantasy lit. I serve at the pleasure of his estate and aim not for profit.   
> Author’s Note: While I think parts of this story can be understood on their own, I think it better to read the whole cycle, or at least Of Elbereth’s Bounty, to completely understand the world I’ve created and the character histories. The series is as follows: Part One is ‘In Earendil’s Light’, Part Two is ‘Under the Elen’, and the vastly larger Part Three is ‘Of Elbereth’s Bounty’.   
> Feedback: Would be delightful.   
> Dedication: To Eresse, as always.

Rohrith’s Tale – Part Three

 

Two Weeks Later

The crack and spit of the kindling hearth was echoed in the scratch and seethe of his wound, which kept him alert but allowed him no true rest. The day was of unconscionable gloom for the prime of the summer season, the gray sky clotted with cloud-cover and the air dank as a marsh. The dismal season was complicit with his hard countenance, the pearly sheen of eyes, that veiled an eviscerating sorrow, and the statuesque ivory of his face, that masked the spidery creases of anxiety beneath. As he reclined on a sober couch by the fire, awaiting the bitter tea with which he would purposefully scald his tongue to stop himself from complaining of his state, he shifted his weight to cinch in his abdomen, gritting through the resulting spasms of pain until his sutures went numb. 

Exasperated by his restlessness, Ciryon had earlier taken him for a patient stroll down the riverside, but even his brother’s thoughtful company had not been enough to distract him from the gnawing scars of his middle, the fangs of frustration that bit up his spine, nor the incessant nag of his protective instincts. They had had no word of Dioren’s progress for nearly a fortnight; if not for the strictures of his belabored recovery, Rohrith would have rode off for the coast by now. That his own healing was of a tardiness near to ridicule only provoked him further, though many of his self-appointed guardians wondered if even an instantaneous curing would have satisfied his indauntible spirit. 

His family members had each spent their allotted time as his makeshift motivators, part jailor, part necromancer, part wet-nurse, but even these dear ones could not tame him into any sense of complacency. He would froth with impatience as an over-boiling cauldron, fume like a cindery forge through the endless days, or languish with glacial resignation in his stark study, but his feebleness forbade that he rise to action. At times, he would grip their hand with fervor and beg their forgiveness for his black moods, but they too-well understood the cause of his barely repressed anguish. 

His heart fought off, with a scything champion’s sword, the encroaching threat of grief. 

As vigilantly as he prayed for Dioren’s wellness and as tirelessly as he hoped for his renewal under Glorfindel’s fine tutelage, Rohrith, for the first time in his brash young life, bemoaned his revelations to his beleaguered friend such that he was struck by unyielding terror. Despite his growling outward demeanor, within his brittle heart lurked a fiendish shame, which spewed through his veins like acid at the merest thought of that vulnerable, witless moment when he had declared his love. When he finally succumbed to sleep, his mind would let no peace reign; his resting hours ravaged by nightmares of scathing reunions with his forlorn friend, who cursed him, derided him, or, worst of all, was completely indifferent to any of his cares. He daily tortured himself with resurrecting that fateful evening to relive, and to suffer again, his idiocy, though he knew not fact from lazy-minded fiction and ruthlessly exaggerated his own forthrightness, to the point of cruelty. Rohrith felt he could not suffer enough for his babbling, for his saccharine candidness, which Dioren, even in his own straits, probably mocked on a nightly basis, for the vital sustenance of mirth. 

What Rohrith would never confess, from accursed pride, from acute despair, from the inestimable fragility of his imperiled heart, was that he secretly wanted that his words had pricked Dioren; that within his spiritually disabled friend lay a plane untouched by misery, innocent and yielding, waiting to be scorched by feeling. That he, the one who had battled for his friend’s sanity for a century’s time, might by some miracle penetrate his legion defenses and win this fallow land for his own. Yet he dared not even contemplate such a possibility, lest the future evidence of its impossibility best him through. 

He had, after all, sworn to his father that he would survive heartbreak. This consideration stretched out to his beloved brothers, each presently consumed by their own passions. 

Baked rosy by the glow of the hearth, Ciryon fussed over the percolating kettle, feigning patience with little art. Entranced by the flames, by his dizzy gaze he could be thinking of none other than Ivrin, upon whose return they awaited. Rohrith’s injury and subsequent convalescence had affected his gentlest brother most viciously; Ivrin’s opportune sojourn from his apprenticeship in Tirion had heartened Ciryon tremendously, as well as helped him release his stores of tension, if the purple smears about his neck and shoulders were any indication. The toppling of ravenous bodies to the floor and the ecstatic cries of completion that had rung about the trees the night before had had the odd effect of soothing Rohrith, as little else had in these last weeks. The aura of effervescent contentment that had rippled through the channel of their brotherly bond had given him his one moment of happiness in this stark time, for he would sacrifice anything for his twins to find their bliss. Self-forfeiture was the only way he knew how to give of himself, how to assure a beloved’s sanctity… how to love. 

Little wonder he was, through the endless slog of recovery, terribly slow to mend. Even with his very life imperiled, he gave everything to others: his future hopes to his siblings, his strength to his fathers, his sweetness to his worried mother, and his every thought, want, will, breath to his golden Dioren. Rohrith grumbled acidly through his convalescence, but like his wound he knew his efforts would eventually prove fruitless. That true healing came at an unthinkable price. 

Emotional severance from the one he held most dear. 

When the door creaked open, Ciryon dropped the kettle with a dull clank onto the hearthstone and skipped over to the entrance hall. The unmistakable smack of lips and purr of stroking tongues heralded Ivrin; Rohrith had no need of yielding to his wound’s singeing protest to forgo rising to greet him. Though he was glad enough of his brother’s fulfillment, he patently refused to witness such things firsthand, if only that his sleep was already plagued with nightmares galore. Ever were there things one should not truly come to know about one’s nearest and dearest. 

The couple murmured conspicuously awhile before venturing into the common room, Ciryon lazing against his beloved, their faces pink with eagerness for some solitary time. Rohrith rose then, if only to prove himself capable of doing so, though his abdomen flared angrily at even this slight exertion. Their stroll by the river had perhaps been more injurious than he had earlier estimated. Ivrin, though awash with concern, clapped a crushing grip to his own; they had not yet met up since his arrival. Twas then that he marked the faint scrape of boots over the hardwood floor, saw their eyes flit to the archway. Ciryon’s were moist with apology, but this veiled a sterling hope that all might soon be righted.

Rohrith did not need turn around to know who awaited his beckoning. 

“Tis a comfort to see you so restored, gwador,” Ivrin noted, with a soft smirk. “You seem so well, I think we might dare take a brief leave. What say you?” 

“Go on, if you would,” Rohrith allowed, fortifying himself for the coming confrontation. “But do not be so avid in your indulgence as night last, else you might well come through the roof!” 

With a merry smile, Ciryon embraced his brother, then both raced off to the terrace stairs. At once, Rohrith sensed his approach almost too keenly, every step a shiver up his back. His mind scrambled for an overture, the perfect phrase, the disarming jibe that might cut through the fog-thick tension and settle them with venting laughter. Restless after but a brief moment’s anticipation, he veered around, then nearly fainted dead at the incensing, rapturous beauty his Dioren had become. 

He was a devastating contrast of climes; of moonlit lushness but of commanding frame, his eyes like daggers of crystalline ice but his skin as supple as a swath of satin, his stance of sinuous elegance but his body vibrant with power, stealth, majesty. He looked regal as a starshine prince, but his build betrayed a capacity for brute force; despite himself, Rohrith instantly craved its claiming, maiming touch. He was astounded, and in a strange manner honored, to behold a creation of such magnificence; Elbereth must have wept when she imagined him into being. 

Rohrith was struck dumb at how Glorfindel’s efforts had polished him so stunning, such that he found he could not speak a word in greeting, even to this dearest of friends. 

Dioren, however, was not nearly so afflicted. Emboldened by the sight of his friend so hardy, if yet somewhat delicate, he launched forward. Before Rohrith could even gasp, he was being hugged with alacrity, nearly crushed but so emphatically he almost sobbed in relief. In that breath-stealing embrace he felt all of Dioren’s cyclonic emotions, from anguish over his vivisecting slice to fervent remorse at his unexplained absence, from the blithest gratitude for Rohrith’s safekeeping to the colossal force of his devotion to him. After a time, the peredhil loosed his hold some, which let Rohrith snake his own arms around his friend and add his own weak grip. They clung to each other vigorously, silently, as the minutes spanned into a quarter-hour, then long past, until Dioren was supporting Rohrith’s weight entirely, nearly cradling him like a babe. Rohrith, for his part, found he could no longer keep his sensitivity caged; he buried his face in Dioren’s neck and mewled like a declawed kitten, overwhelmed by what he had never acknowledged that he awaited, that his healing body needed, that he so longed for. 

Dioren’s succor. 

The effect of parting again was almost visceral for him, though Dioren barely slipped from his arms and stayed but a foot away. Forgetting his own culpability, the golden elf examined him with an exacting eye, assuring himself that he had not abandoned his friend to unaccomplished healers. Through this, Rohrith could only gawk at him, at his comeliness, at his assured manner, at the touchingly endearing eyes soon foist upon him, wet with repentance. 

“How oft must I forgive you before it takes, meldiren,” Rohrith responded to his unspoken question. “By the Valar’s grace, the incident has been completely erased from my memory. I have mused only, through weeks past, upon the state of your wellness. You must recount every moment of your sessions! Have you benefited from them? What progress have you made? Has Glorfindel been kind with you?” 

“Think you Glorfindel has been sharp?” Dioren smirked, unsurprised – knowing his friend only too well - at how swiftly any thought of Rohrith’s own pains were dismissed in favor of inquiry after Dioren’s condition. “In truth, I cannot say the time has been pleasant, though the constant, calming presence of the ocean did much to pacify my more insurgent emotions. I am noticeably bettered by the sessions, I believe, if not wholly restored. Yet I am… I am hopeful that I may in time *be* restored. That wholeness may be mine.” Almost sheepishly, he revealed more. “I have come to know this other self quite intimately in past weeks. Though fraught, the experience of his life is terribly moving. I have found him to be… quite likeable.” 

“I already adore him,” Rohrith fondly remarked, then caught himself cold. 

His cheeks burning with embarrassment, he attempted to slink out of Dioren’s casual hold, only to be betrayed by his wound. With the damper of the other’s body no longer snuffing his strained, furious nerves, the scar began to fester with pain, such that Rohrith was soon being carried over to the couch and lain across its bristly cushions, while Dioren scoured the area for remedial salve. Rohrith pointed meekly to the bowl waiting on the waytable, the mixture’s elements still strewn around. Once perched on the slight edge by his friend’s waist, Dioren carefully peeled up his tunic to reveal the arc of snarled sutures, the crimson frown sewn across his abdomen. 

Though there was minimal gore at this advanced stage of recovery, Dioren blanched to a near-diaphanous pallor when so confronted by the dreadful acuity of his swordsmanship; Rohrith half expected another blustery apology. None, however, was forthcoming. Instead, he scooped up a generous glob of salve and greased it along the path of inflammation, his eyes shining with tenderness, with remorse, but not a hint of self-berating. Rohrith finally released the breath he did not know he was holding back, urging himself to enjoy – for the first time in his infirmity – another’s care. 

Dioren, however, was no simple other, thus every swipe of his fingers over his itching skin elicited a frisson of too enticing sensation. He was thankfully rendered impotent by sickness, else he was certain such teasing tickles would have adamantly roused him; Dioren’s discomfiture would be only too plainly beheld, and *this* when he wanted platonic assurances. Struggling to ignore the too tempting spread of salve across his middle, Rohrith instead rallied his concentration towards some digestible explanation for his mush-minded behavior in the Healing Halls, some winning notion of how to wipe out the entire episode from Dioren’s memory. 

Despite the hot flush of utter mortification that burned his face red at the slightest thought of his poorly-recollected troths, he could not for all his wits come to a solution. Indeed, as Dioren meticulously taped a bandage down, he became utterly bewildered by the notion of even revivifying the matter between them. Perhaps he could somehow pretend that the moment was spurned on by a drug-induced hallucination, that he had believed Dioren was one of the builders in Tathren’s crew and that he had just ungraciously fallen from a tree. No elf would possibly admit to such a fallacy without undue provocation, surely Dioren might be swayed… 

“Can you sit?” Dioren asked once his task was accomplished to his satisfaction. “I would speak with you on a rather… sensitive matter.” 

Rohrith’s cheeks fired anew, but he conceded with a tremulous: “Aye.” 

He managed to distract himself while shifting position, his wound still nibbling in fits. To his surprised, Dioren tucked rather closely in with him, extending a supportive arm around his shoulders and leaning around to face him. His friend quivered with apprehension. Though his eyes beamed a reverent regard his way, his mouth grimaced in elaborate deliberation. 

The weave of soothing fingers through his hair was not unfamiliar, nor was the hand that rested on his chest. Rohrith had expected stuttering, shyness, even incisiveness, as Dioren was rarely afraid of overt confrontation. He had not, however, by any means expected the blush that bloomed in his friend’s cheeks, nor the rush of exhaled breath, nor the quick, nearly blindsiding swoop into his space nor the whispering sigh… nor the velvet press of his pink, pillowy lips in a scarlet kiss. Rohrith would have been agog, had he not been so occupied with suckling the mouth that covered his own so delectably, that opened every so often for a fleet flick of tongue which did not yet dare delve. The thought of such delving, of parting those silken lips and stroking tongue to tongue crazed him such that he couldn’t properly counsel himself against it. 

Instead, he cupped Dioren’s flaming cheeks, his thumbs grazing the edge of his defined jaw. In an effortless maneuver, he licked brusquely at the luscious mouth as he simultaneously eased those sultry lips apart, until his probing tongue brushed along a slinky texture that nearly maddened him. He purred, like the overeager kitten he was, into that steamy cavity, when their tongue-play turned succulently languorous. The fevered laps Dioren roughed along his slick muscle spoke an unmistakable language all their own, as did the fleshy stiffness – though sheathed in leather breeches – prodding into his hip. 

Rohrith was only too grateful to be so gorged upon. He didn’t give the oddity of the action another thought; not that many could be summoned, amidst the lusty haze that misted over his senses. He only wished, with more fervor than he could ever politely admit to, that his body was not so stressed by convalescence as to prevent him from producing his own erection, which his girding loins felt but tragically could not show. Dioren, despite his own tumescence, seemed content with the raw sensuality of their kissing, their tongues now entangled in a giddy contest of wills. 

After deliberately seeking to numb himself into complacence, after raging so vociferously against fear, vulnerability, and self-loathing, Rohrith was soon blazing with empowered emotion, his confidence gloriously revivified. He wanted to suck at Dioren’s tongue until he spent in his breeches. He wanted to daub his fingers in the extra salve, sneak down his backside, and stab into Dioren until he howled with pleasure. He wanted to rip his laces off and tare down his trousers, so that he might maul the scarlet symbol of his insurgent desire to distraction, until Dioren sobbed with need of release. 

No such carnal ruse was allowed him, however, as Dioren snapped away as suddenly came on, his face so panic-stricken Rohrith was nearly sick himself. He tried, with more instinct than design, to catch his lips again, but Dioren only allowed the briefest flutter before he moved away. 

“Forgive me,” he tentatively intoned, as if unsure of his own voice. “I have been bold for one so uncertain.” 

“I do not mind,” Rohrith insisted, but understood that he must attend his explanation with patience. “Indeed, I find such boldness rather…affecting.” 

“Then I… I pleased you?” Dioren asked, with pleading eyes. “You seemed shocked. At first.”

“I am entirely undone,” Rohrith promised him. “I long for more.” Yet the words, though honest, felt strange on his tongue. Insight dawned over him, keen as his mind ever was, as to some troublesome potentialities. Why had Dioren embraced him so? As if… as if his very existence depended on the action. He suddenly saw the overture in an altogether more sallow light, though he prayed he was mistaken. “If that would please *you*, gwador.” 

“It could do,” Dioren hesitantly admitted. “First, I must appraise you of… of some of the rather revolutionary discoveries from my sessions with Glorfindel.” 

Rohrith wove caring arms around Dioren, then urged him: “I attend you.” 

Dioren sucked back a brisk gulp of air, then expelled slowly. To Rohrith’s mounting dismay, nothing in his fair countenance even hinted at the desire to caress, to nuzzle, or to seek out heartening reinforcement.

“I will elaborate at a later time,” he cautiously began. “But suffice it to say that… that I have come to know a fragment of my true nature. That I am, in essence… that you were correct in your assertion concerning my taste for maids. Though only a half-elf, I know the stirrings of the duality of elf kind. I have come to desire… indeed, to burn with a raging fire such as I have never known… for the incendiary touch of males.” 

Stunned, Rohrith could only gape anew. “You… burn?”

“Aye,” Dioren nodded, smirking shyly. “I *crave*.” 

“Crave,” Rohrith repeated, his mind vividly assessing the ramifications of such a development even as he absorbed the truth of it. “Is there… is there one in particular, that you might crave?” 

“Perchance,” Dioren acknowledged, ruddy as a plum though not above some gentle teasing. “Glorfindel believes that I might come to find a greater sense of self-worth, of pleasure and ultimately of wholeness, that I might be fortified for trials to come through… through some… carnal exploration.” 

Rohrith nearly swallowed his tongue. “You mean… *bed-play*?” 

“Aye,” Dioren rasped. He could not suppress a stretching grin, though he still blushed furiously. “He proposed that I indulge myself, but cautioned me to chose a patient, loving partner. One that knows of the intricacies and the perils of my plight, and who would be able to care for me, should I become embroiled in a spell. Indeed, he believes I may even be able to tap into further knowledge of my past, in such naked, intimate moments.” Steeling himself for the coming reaction, he ventured past the point of no return. “In my esteem, there is no other who has shown me such compassion, such affection…” 

Before he could utter another word, he was assaulted by hungry lips. 

“I will,” Rohrith agreed, between heady draughts on his mouth. “I *must* be the one.” 

Dioren pressed a delicate kiss home, to silence him. 

“I did not doubt your instant dedication to the task,” Dioren chuckled, though beneath there was yet some reservation. “But, since your… altogether overwhelming and colossally affecting troths that evening, in the Healing Halls, I feel I must keep a close vigil over that deceptively tender heart of yours, gwador-nin. Now that I know of its honor, its immaculate beauty, I must battle, even against my own betterment, for its sanctity. This rapid-strewn course of treatment I wish to undertake… you must understand that its source is purest desire. Lust, and this alone.” As if a curse, he whispered his conclusion. “Mistake it not for love.” 

With a blustery sigh, Rohrith cast his eyes down. Ever before, his moods were write large across his wolfine features, as easily readable as any proper scroll. Yet in the grip of this instance, his friend’s face colored with shades and hues he’d never even imagined. Their revelation, in such a rapt moment, only made him more admirable. 

“You have been many incredible things to me, meldir,” Rohrith remarked softly. “But never cruel. Never foolish, nor unobservant. You know too well that I cannot refuse you. That after my timely confession, after such an extraordinary overture, I am ensnared. There is no choice before me… and the outcome, too, *my outcome*, is set from this point on. Yet, knowing this, you persisted. You lured me forth… Can you truly say that there is no glimmer of a chance for love? That by a kiss, you have knowingly condemned your greatest champion to grief?” 

“I cannot promise,” he insisted, shame scorching him. “I cannot swear.” 

“You are no blackguard, Dioren,” Rohrith cooed, before plucking another perfect kiss from him. “Nor can I ought but gamble my fate. If you will wait out my convalescence, then I would be most…” He raked a sultry gaze over his brawny frame, at once rapacious and adoring. “…blessed, to be your guide in these *carnal explorations*.” 

“I will remain with you, this night,” Dioren vowed, lured anew to the voluptuous snarl of his lips. “I will dedicate myself to your succor, gwador.” 

Before sinking back into the luxury of their embrace, Rohrith fixed him with black, piercing eyes and told of his good fortune. 

“You must never forget, my brave one,” he underlined. “I have *always* known who you are.” 

* * *

With the growling moan of a mountain cat lazing across a sun-baked rock, Rohrith woke to a hazy, hothouse midsummer morning. The top cover had been unceremoniously, and no doubt unconsciously, cast off not just their slow-roasting bodies but the bottom edge of the bed. The sheet beneath was soaked clammy with sweat, as well as other unidentifiable excretions common to the male of the species. Their bare skin was already flush moist by the ungodly temperature; but despite the lugubrious atmosphere, he could not ever recall being so content. 

With Dioren curled up so cozily against him, Rohrith could suffer the fires of Mordor; his flaxen head tucked into his neck, the silken filaments of hair and the tangle of ivory arms webbed across his torso, the balmy gusts of breath down his chest. Though for the past five nights they had been chaste as a maid on the eve of her majority, he could not imagine how any carnal act – from his own, limited experience of them - might be more nurturing to either Dioren’s fraught spirit or to his fractured body than this simple intimacy between them. As never before in his impetuous existence, he found himself lazing about their bed until noontime; if not for Dioren’s afternoon sessions with Glorfindel and the necessities of his newly empowered physique, he would devise some excuse to keep him the day long. 

Dioren was only too glad to indulge him. For one who had known times of both succor and severity, his character had been molded most by the latter. His prime directive, when not engaged in the struggle towards his own wellness, was the insurance of Rohrith’s comfort. If Rohrith would later take on the colossal task of his bed-learning, then until such a time Dioren would dedicated himself to nursing his friend back to vitality. Each morn, after a brisk swim in the river, he would brew a pot of herb tea to rouse Rohrith’s drowsy senses; cups of which led them to engage in rowdy, sprawling, and oft taunting debates, all whilst lingering abed. By noontime, he would lure the grumpy elf into the bathing chamber, where they would cleanse themselves of wooziness, spar giddily while armed with whipping, wet towels. After fortifying words from Rohrith during their luncheon, Dioren would toddle off to Glorfindel; at their supper upon his return he would give his report of the day’s advances. Though Rohrith was keen to entertain a few friends or relatives in the evening, even his meticulously ordered pontifications on whichever subject they chose to espouse were cut short by nightfall, so that his devout caretaker might be drawn into their bedchamber, might succumb to his teasing caresses. They would stretch out on the chaise-longue beneath the skylight and kiss with breathtaking eloquence, until Dioren was too overcome by desire to keep himself counseled. 

Rohrith’s continued unresponsiveness to such acutely stirring kisses was a growing frustration for him. Though he restrained his ire from affecting Dioren, he ached when his friend had to steal away, like some perversion, to an undisclosed location – whether moments after he sank into sleep, in the sultry dark of night, or with the blushing break of dawn – to wrench out his release. There were no secrets between them, but neither did they overtly speak of Dioren’s ripening sexuality and the necessities of such an overwrought state. While Dioren did not shy away from the subject, he would not hear of pleasing himself in Rohrith’s presence during his convalescence. Despite Rohrith’s repeated assurances that he would learn, though more importantly *enjoy*, witnessing firsthand his friend’s performances, Dioren had been adamant. So strongly was he resolved against forcing his needs on one injured at his hand, that even when embroiled in steam-clouded dreams he rolled to the far side of the bed, preferring Rohrith’s phantom touch to the real press of his body against him. That Dioren muttered his name alone whilst in the thrall of such wanton dreams was of little comfort. Though moved by Dioren’s gallant attitude towards his mind’s conservation and his body’s protection, he was sickened by his own prolonged impotence. 

His hard-won prize was displayed before him in all its gilded glory, but he could not yet grasp hold. 

This morning was providing some small measure of consolation, what with Dioren napping so sweetly in his arms, though such softness had come at a brutal price. The previous evening, Dioren had not returned for their late meal; indeed, he had not snuck into the apartment until nearly midnight. Two truths had been immediately clear from his sallow, strained visage. First, that he had hoped Rohrith would be too stressed by his body’s mending to stave off sleep. Second, that his session with Glorfindel had resurrected some deeply embedded hurt from within the trenches of his earlier life. When he marked Rohrith sitting on the edge of their bed, a despairing cry sounded from him. Dioren had staggered blindly over, collapsed onto his knees, and berthed his tousled head in Rohrith’s waiting lap, as he sobbed his chagrined story out. He had remembered not a torment, but a blessing from his previous incarnation. 

His mother’s love. 

Ever had Dioren believed that his mother’s behavior had been similar towards him in both of his lives, that she had been of chill heart even during his first elflinghood, when faced with her mate’s abandonment, with the solitary rearing of their half-breed child in a time when such things were still frowned upon in the impenetrable circles of Sindar nobility. As with the repression of so many other of his likes, loves, and yearnings from that tender time, he had forgotten her warmth, her unflinching support, and her irreplaceable kindness. She had not been a cold mother, but – he now vividly recalled - had escaped while pregnant from the deadly clutches of his manly forefathers by her own keen devices and had fought her regal parents like a lioness when, upon his birth, they would have exposed him to the elements (the only way to irrevocably snuff out an elven soul) rather than rear a half-elf as their own. Dioren understood, through this shattering revelation, why she had grieved so upon his malformed rebirth; what else could she possibly give the child she had already debased herself for, battled for and bled for. One of her blithe nature could only endure so much disgrace, so many trials and so much bereavement, from a child who remembered nothing of how she had adored him, of their dearly, quiet times together and of their earlier adventures. 

To say that Dioren’s spirit had been mightily bruised by such a searing insight into his first life would be a grave understatement. That night, he had spent himself in sobbing, crushing their bodies together until their joints cracked, his fingers clawing into Rohrith’s back, no hold secure enough, warm enough, to sate his brutal need for softness. Rohrith had half feared he would rush off in search of some curvy maid to bed or, worse, immerse himself in an extended fugue, but after the storm of sorrow passed, he had wanted only assurances: that their friendship could be sustained beyond his tumultuous majority, that Rohrith would always hold him dear, that he did not act out of pity but out of genuine regard. Despite the sapping energy it required to keep vigil over him once he found slumber, Rohrith was true to his every vow; even now, he doubted he had even shifted his hold an inch during the night, not that embracing Dioren was such a challenge to him. 

Even whilst his charge was yet heavy with sleep, his sculpted peredhil body knew no rest from wanting. An eager erection pressed rather emphatically into his hip, though its rosy skin was not yet stretched firm. Dioren’s eyelids batted and fluttered as if upon a dreamscape, his parted lips sucking in quick pants of air. His needful body would not wait long on waking whilst in such a roused state, but Rohrith prayed, nevertheless, that he might doze through his lurid fantasy and spend across his abdomen; a most fitting salve for his wound. 

A symphony of grunts and groans wafted in from beyond, like a bawdy choir in place of wind. In such humid climes of pane-less windows, of open balconies and of unlatched doors, the quarters the triplets shared atop the mallorn boughs seemed even closer still. Though each individual apartment had its own space, sound whisked about unrestricted between their talans, as fleet-footed as the winged messenger of Quenya myth. With no possible filter for their more salacious ejaculations, Rohrith had anguished through many a sizzling summer night, his ears ringing and his libido perilously roused. Little wonder he was so easily stirred in sunny months, for his vow of abstinence had to contend with the ardor of Brithor’s latest fling and the fervor of Ciryon’s devotion to his Ivrin.

Night last, while fidgeting in wait for Dioren’s return, Rohrith had spied Brithor sneaking across their terrace with not one, but two of the more loose-skirted maids recently migrated to their vale from Otirion. His brother had become rather over-ambitious, since his last, lengthy relationship had ended so disastrously, with his banishment from her father’s realm. If one dallies, near adulterously, with a lady promised by her noble kin to their long-sworn enemy, to ensure the peaceful alliance of their houses, then one might expect some fury upon the affair’s discovery. Brithor, however, was somehow immune to politicking in his own, endearing, perpetually amiable fashion. The blow of their breaking had gutted his poor brother through. He had loved the girl, in his own, earnest and noncommittal way. Rohrith often felt that he must cherish them all for the time of their togetherness, that their loss, whether through his own decision or through calamity’s strike, was its own tiny heartbreak, which through time would eventually take their toll and cause him to settle permanently. Brithor, since their second majority, had been revenging himself on his sadness, taking no partner for more than a week of raucous tumbling and running from any maid that might truly capture his affections, even for a brief while. His fathers kept a hawk eye on this behavior, but did not yet object, as only once vetted of this loucheness would Brithor open himself to another’s more heartful care. 

The throaty moans and peals of childish laughter that currently tippled from his talan were those of a courtesan’s den. They were provoking all the same, their merriment and their abandon rather addictive, as were the more rapturous purrs just beginning above. Rohrith could not rightly keep himself from coloring out the scene in his mind from this rich sonic sketch; Ivrin’s rugged bass was the more prominent, while Ciryon’s soprano was muffled, as if stopped by some blunt yet giving implement. The entire effect was terribly shameful, but he could not genuinely think of shame when his loins gurgled so obstinately, their full boil iced over again and again by the stab of his severed belly. The sounds made his mouth tacky, palate bone dry but jowls sagging with saliva. His hard stare flitted down to the swollen head drooling over his hip, the elongated shaft hidden beneath a muscular stretch of leg. 

Suddenly, his lusting mind could find no reason why Dioren could not enjoy such oral stimulus in his stead. He was, quite obviously, affected by the heady chorus, even in light sleep. If ought, it would ease his personal frustration to know that some elf had benefited from such a scorching orchestra, especially since Ivrin’s purrs had become outright hollers of delight; Rohrith anticipated his howling completion any second. 

There was not a moment to waste on dainty pondering. 

Inspired by the twin trill of shrieks blasting forth from Brithor’s bedchamber, he eased Dioren onto his back while nuzzling his neck, encouraged by the little bleats of affection that tripped from his smiling lips. Rohrith knew he must avoid those if he wished for his friend’s blissful fulfillment, for even the chaste lap of his tongue might wake him. With this in mind, he briefly suckled the lissome neck, dip of collar, pursed pectorals, and wispy plane of chest, marveling at how his lips pinked the skin so lovely. He could not help but maul awhile at his puckered nipples, though a lively gasp from Dioren pushed him onward, down the sleek slope of abdomen and into that sinfully musky navel. He laved with abandon, entranced by the sharp, manly scent of his beloved, so gracious in form but yet of such sublime potency. What was once a symphony beyond was now a clamor of cries, screams, and curses, as the gleeful maids turned on their stud and Ivrin above was spread for breaching. 

The hot space around Dioren’s groin singed the skin of Rohrith’s neck, even his succulent navel could not further occupy him when he was but moments from truly tasting the one he had so long hungered for. Yet he went about the task with delicacy, with every skill in his possession, circling the broad head with but the tip of his twitching tongue before swiping flat down the shaft, which was strung tight as a leather strap. He taunted the stiff swell as long as he could, head, shaft, and bollocks galore, before he had to swallow him. He was barely conscious of the guttural moans his talents were eliciting from his peredhil prey, nor the shallow thrusts into his mouth. His loins burned and his wound seethed as he indulged himself with impunity, exploiting this one, thieved chance to gorge, as he had only dreamed, on the too-savory flesh. 

With a roar, fingers scraped across his skull, then Dioren spent deep into his throat.

Silence fell like a slap around him, the air live with shock. Dioren shuddered, panting wildly, not even his astonishment able to stop him from writhing through the sensuous slithers of his orgasm. As he crawled up to greet him, Rohrith stroked over his sensitive skin, smoothing greedy hands over his sinuous frame, thereby prolonging his pleasure. Dioren was still enthralled, bristling and unfocused, when Rohrith settled them into a tight embrace; he groaned loud at but a sweetly kiss to his temple. 

“I had… forbidden…” he mumbled, but the lofty air stung him such that he had to burrow further against Rohrith, until every possible strip of skin stuck to his. 

“Have you not the grace to thank me?” Rohrith teased him, with a fond chuckle. 

After a rumbling sigh of gratitude, Dioren thanked him through the rough tangle of tongues. With Rohrith’s self-esteem suitably appeased, their lips pecked and flirted awhile, until Dioren’s reverent smile was so implacable that he could do naught but bask in it. 

“Your brothers are quite… voluble,” he noted bemusedly. “I cannot fathom how you abstained so long, with such lusty singers about your eaves.” 

“I may have forgone the company of a lover,” Rohrith smirked. “But I hardly abstained. I merely preferred to conjure the lover of my choice, whist suitably… inspired, by the goings-on about.” 

“And who was this lucky elf of your sultry, sticky dreams?” Dioren grinned rakishly, with pointed brow of nearly Elladanian arch. 

Rohrith, however, demurred, blushing quite fetchingly and nuzzling his face into Dioren’s hair. He could not yet quite bring himself to speak so casually of a feeling that possessed him so completely, not with the object of his devotion, of his obsession. He yet feared giving his heart entirely to Dioren, as too many others were at stake, too many vows had been pledged to vigilance. He was yet too raw to commit himself to fate’s eternal condemnation. 

“Never have you, brave one, skittered away from an honest reply,” Dioren remarked gently. “Even when speaking of the pains of my condition, never have you failed to meet my eyes, Rohr-neth.”

“I said enough, when silly,” came the rote response. “I know you did not fail to mark my ravings, addled as they were.” 

“Has your heart changed, then?” Dioren queried, as if asking after a late relation. 

After an extended pause, a whisper ghosted down the teardrop slope of his ear. “Nay.”

Dioren carefully drew his friend down into his arms, until the darkling elf was being cradled. He brushed wandering fingers through the lengths of ebony hair as he considered his following move, wanting to continue his questioning, but worried that this would only quiet Rohrith further.

“Why do you fear my confidence?” Dioren finally asked, choosing an earnest tract. “Ever have we been forthright in our dealings, emotional or otherwise. Ever have we been the other’s sanctuary. Perhaps you fear that I am threatened by your too endearing revelation, but I am heartened. Never has one so sterling as you, my dear mellon, esteemed me so. I only wish…” He rallied his emotions, knowing only too well that any sign of softness might be grievously misinterpreted. “If we are truthful concerning our feelings… it might provide a measure of solace.”

“What else am I to tell you?” Rohrith demanded, his aching vulnerability plain. “I have vomitted out my entrails for you to examine, have you not discovered there evidence enough of the bile I have swallowed as eagerly as your seed in… in caring for you.” He hoisted up on his elbows and foist pleading eyes at him. “This dawn has seen the fulfillment of… of one of my most revisited, most lingered upon desires. I have reveled in the body that has tempted me for so long, brought explosive pleasure to the one I… I adore. *Saes*, Dioren, I know you care only for my wellness, but… do not ruin this moment with talk of what cannot be altered, even by such pleasures as we have known this morn. Of what must, for the sanctity of our much cherished friendship, be suffered in silence.” After laying his cheek back in the nest of satiny hair and burying even more closely to his friend, Rohrith added bitterly: “My brothers have not mistaken your cries for pain. They will be here soon enough to sour my mood with their prying, though well-intentioned, questions.”

With a kiss of agreement to the crown of his black hair, as well as a prick of despair within, Dioren fell silent. 

*

When the familiar patter of twin knuckles knocked at the balcony later that morn, Rohrith’s mood had not dulled from its earlier sharpness. Though he was no longer cross with Dioren, who had scooted off to meet Glorfindel after taking him for a brisk, cooling swim in the river, he was foul with anticipation of his imminent discussion with his brothers, mostly because the arguments they would no doubt present to him were both reasonable and sound. A skilled debater, Rohrith was sure he could deviate their logic far enough from their initial tract to win them over; the question remained of whether this was a wise course. 

Subterfuge was never an honorable choice, especially before those who had his best interests at heart. He acknowledged, somewhere deep within, that his agreeing to instruct Dioren in matters of bed-play was folly for one so enamored of him, that even his golden one’s laurelled friendship would not be enough to sustain him in the long term, and that his heart read into the peredhil’s succoring acts a tenor of emotion that was not honestly therein, with only too much mule-headed facility. Even Glorfindel’s approval of such methods was suspect, his match-making tendencies well know among the youth of the vale. Rohrith had tallied all these objections to himself ad nauseum over many lonely afternoons of aggravating rest, but could not yet reconcile their obvious merit with a truth he’d confessed to no other, not even Dioren himself. 

Being with his friend, in any capacity, restored him. 

Despite his mild sourness in the face of his upcoming placation of his twins, Rohrith’s rejuvenating body was visibly bettered from the previous day. Though he had not drawn physical satisfaction from pleasuring Dioren, the fulfillment of this longtime dream had nourished his body in other ways, such that he moved with greater ease, had endured a longer swim without tiring, and was not, even just before luncheon, betraying a whiff of fatigue. He even felt he had the stamina for some revision of the treaties the conference had engendered; though not pressing, his grandsire did await his notes on certain stipulations. Most of all, he veritably sang with expectancy for Dioren’s return that evening, when, with the memory of that morning’s release still coursing through him, his golden one might be nudged towards further sensual explorations, which hopefully would incite his own body to rouse, even for a brief while. 

He snapped awake from these sultry daydreams when Ciryon and Brithor entered his common room, bearing a carafe of iced mead, a bowl of seasonal fruit, a plate of toasted lembas, and a tray of smoked meats. Rohrith may not be tired, but he was famished from his morning exertions; his eyes as gaping as the black mouth of a cavern, ready to devour, at the food so caringly prepared for him. They knew well how to ply him! With a roguish grin, he sprang up from his reading to greet them, then ushered them and their culinary delights into the dining room. His twins were mildly stunned at the force of his welcoming embrace, further evidence of the strength his emaciated frame was slowly reacquiring. 

Rohrith was not, however, deceived by the splendor of their offerings, nor the jovial quips that preceded their meal. His brothers were too earnest to properly conceal the spindly lines of concern that fringed their bright eyes, too direct to entirely camouflage the quicksand they slowly lead him towards. When, after polishing off every last morsel they had bourn to the table, an uneasy silence fell, Rohrith prepared himself for their conversation to take on the expected severity. After Brithor rose to pour them a light, syrupy digestive liquor, Ciryon’s face took on the air of solemnity he usually reserved for the recounting of cautionary tales to a gathering of elflings, which would have amused Rohrith had he not been so affronted by the implication of his naivety. He himself took on his diplomatic pose, as if preparing to bargain with an aggressive noble from afar; sitting with regal poise about his high-backed chair and attuning his senses to the slightest dissonance in the other’s conversation. 

“Though tis no hardship to lunch with so adored a brother,” Ciryon began softly. “I suppose, gwanur-nin, that you know only too well why we have come calling this particular noontime.”

“Aye,” Rohrith demurred, giving up no more rope than was necessary. 

“Then we heard true, early this morn,” Ciryon noted rhetorically. “These were indeed moans of… pleasure, sounding from your bedchamber. You were engaged in…”

“Rohrith, what in Elbereth’s name has possessed you?” Brithor demanded, slicing through the formalities with a keen knife. “I know how your weakness chafes you, but your ailing body is yet too vulnerable to couple-“

“If your rather imposing investigation must be given the saucy details,” Rohrith snipped acidly. “I know my limitations well enough, and would not suffer the strictures of this condition any longer than absolutely necessary. I gave pleasure. I did not receive. Not bodily. My spirit, however, is effulgent, and as such has fired my capacities, so you best… resolve yourselves to more nocturnal symphonies.” He added a gibe, with a wink. “Tis not as if you do not orchestrate your own nightly, gwenin.” 

“Yet I play with one whose heartful ardor is equal to my own,” Ciryon quietly objected. “While Brithor tunes about with those who seek, as he, only a song’s harmony, a night of satiation. The note struck by Dioren’s heart is perilously dissonant to your own, gwanur.” 

“He has not yet caught the melody,” Rohrith challenged. “But already he has come so far. After just a few weeks of sessions with Glorfindel, his heart beats out an entirely opposite tattoo to the one he’d previously strummed to. With a little encouragement…”

“At too dear a price, Rohrith!” Brithor suddenly shouted, exasperated by their skittering about this vital matter. “Do not mistake me, I sympathize with Dioren’s plight and wish him every happiness, but I will not sacrifice my most valiant and irreplaceable brother for its achievement. Methinks even this calamity has not impressed enough caution on your too strident spirit! What injury must he cause to convince you of the dangers of this course of action? Or will you only reckon the threat to your beleaguered spirit once in Mandos itself?” 

“Brith-neth, you are too sharp with him,” Ciryon attempted to soften him, as Rohrith had gone terribly pale. “Naught will be achieved in distemper.” 

“Nay, Ciri, I have not been sharp enough,” he blustered on. “All of our elders tip-toe around the matter, as if ogres in the garden fearing to upset the rose beds, but in being so docile their anxiety is dissolute.” He inflicted his hard, black stare upon Rohrith, almost cruel from one usually so unfailingly kind. “I cannot conceive, gwanur-nin, of how you can so flagrantly court fading, when every member of your family is wrought with worry over this foolish notion of Ada-Fin’s for Dioren’s treatment.”

“You are one to speak,” Rohrith shot back. “Rutting your seething heart away with every lax-legged maid in Aman.”

Brithor ignored this slight, instead telling of his desolation: “Since our earliest years, Ciri and I have followed your example, at times blindly, as ever were you bolder, keener, and more adventurous than we. When you charged forth, we ran behind; gladly for we knew you would never lead us to harm. Yet if you continue on your present path, you will lead us all to ruin! I cannot live on without my beloved, insurgent brother; I would be lost without your guidance, Rohrith, your care. We are meant to be three, to doubly support our weakest link. With two such brothers…” 

Brithor bowed his head, cursing his ineffectual tongue. Why must Rohrith have their entire share of eloquence? Tears beaded in his eyes, but he had not the heart to brush them away. He was going to lose his brother. Even at his most tender arguments, Rohrith’s eyes had glowed with defiance, with the scintillating spark of one who had recently been embroiled in a love-act with the one who held his heart. Under much more joyous circumstances, he had witnessed the same nascent flicker in Ciryon’s eyes, after his first indulgence with Ivrin. Their relationship, however, was not expected to prove so grievous. Was loving another always so fraught with risk? If so, he prayed he would never truly love, for all he wanted in the world was to live on in harmony with his beloved twins. 

Twins who, at present, were not entirely immune to his arguments. While Brithor struggled to stave off tears and Ciryon pleaded silently with Rohrith to comfort him, Rohrith himself was in a stew. How to explain his hopefulness, the necessities of his love for Dioren, the yet inconceivable fact that he would not ever allow his brothers to fade should he be forever denied? He was a leader of purest element, who gave of his very essence even in the direst straits. He would fight off Mandos as if a horde of fiery Balrogs, never would he give in! His brothers, however, were not so stoutly made, which was not to fault them. Each of the three had their own, precious and unique qualities; combined they were unstoppable, even against grief. 

“With two such brothers,” Rohrith repeated, with a more potent emphasis. “Mandos cannot even dare to claim us. Do you think me so love-crazed as to give up those made of the very same matter as myself, even for one so dear as Dioren? If ever have I forged ahead, then you must now trust that I do so knowingly, purposely, and with conviction that this is the best course for us all. Though I do not oft betray evidence of this awareness, I do know my own limits, Brith-neth.” Brithor snarked out a laugh at this, but was not yet appeased. “Yet neither will I concede so easily a battle I have waged for a century long, not when victory is in my sights. Dioren’s wholeness becomes a more palpable reality by the day, but he cannot vanquish his divisiveness and win back his livelihood without the stability of our friendship. That this affection between us must now be physically manifested is a treacherous course, true. But judging from our too-swift indulgence this morn… I cannot conceive of how such ecstasy could possibly bring about my ruin. I assure you, I feel… vital. Empowered. Hungry…” At Brithor’s smirk, he added: “Do not tell me one of your carnal appetites knows naught of such voraciousness.” 

“I know only too well,” Brithor sighed, reaching out to clasp his brother’s hands and to solder peace between them. “But I will say only that I hope, should you need my ear, you will seek me out, when the consequences of such wantonness come about. For their will be consequences, Rohrith, little matter how glutted you become.” 

“I swear I will not forget your words,” he vowed contritely, rising to embrace them both. “Nor dismiss the cautions you have laid bare, this day. I cherish your concern, gwenin. I myself would be lost without your guardianship, the inestimable wealth of your care.” 

They wound tightly together, as when they were young, letting their brotherly affection run riot through their twin-bond; each painfully reluctant to break away.

* * *

One Month Later

With the clogging brume and the incensing heat of midsummer having burnt itself away, the dulcet summer days welcomed such common elven activities as Rohrith was now, Valar be praised, hardy enough to undertake. Dioren had, to his own inner satisfaction, imposed upon his friend an exercise regiment whose rigors increased not with his ambitions, but with the evidence of his regained dexterity, of which there was ample. His frame, though yet too slender, began to be strung with thin lengths of muscle, his skin again took on that healthy, buttery tone, and his wound was but a blurred pink smear across his newly taut abdomen. Indeed, when caught in the flow of a typical day’s work, not even his familiars would guess at his extended convalescence, if they had not already been aware. 

While Dioren’s routine varied little from what occupied him following the accident, Rohrith had almost completely resumed his duties for their Lord, though Elrond yet insisted that he remain housebound, with a brother, elder, friend, or colleague near. Rohrith swallowed this cautionary measure with difficulty, but, with his usual cunning, continually devised reasons for the Lord himself or his esteemed councilors to visit there, knowing that eventually they would tire of this displacement and allow him to walk the tranquil path to the Hall of Fire each afternoon. Mornings were yet reserved for their exercise and evenings for their entertainment, though their late nights alternated between the blissful and the fraught. 

Dioren himself was well enough; the memories trickled forth at a leisurely pace, so he could easily pour off what might overly-ripple his outwardly calm surface. Indeed, this intimate time with Rohrith was proving to be the most agreeable of this life. Despite his earlier reservations against receiving pleasure when he could engender none in his partner, his craven body could not long refuse Rohrith’s too explicit attentions, as his friend was only too willing to appease him with sensuality. The darkling elf, through lengthy erotic trials, had mastered the meticulous arousal of his body and his senses, until he smoldered to a sundering release. Every aspect of their play, from teasing to eruption, was exquisite, though he longed most, after being so expertly tortured, to experiment on Rohrith himself. 

This uncharted territory, however, proved a minefield of trouble for them. 

Rohrith, despite their relentless nights of love-play, had yet to recover his potency. He could bear a certain amount of petting, stroking, and skin-scouring from his curious friend, as he *was* eager to teach him all aspects of male coupling, but eventually his touches would venture too close for comfort. His lack of response would frustrate him so that he would wrench away, fuming and grumbling, his flaccidity shaming him into a hasty retreat. Yet Dioren would only have to wait a few moments before he crawled back, muttering apologies, to finish him. True to his gallant form, he would not broke a whisper of protest, reassuring an equally perturbed Dioren that he took more pleasure in being able to affect him as he did than in any orgasm he might himself experience. 

The molten chemistry between them only cut him deeper, when so brutally faced with his own continued impotence. Though they had resolved to keep their physical relationship from their circle of friends and to behave chastely among family, when alone, when he felt spirited, Rohrith was an incorrigible flirt, even the most simple phrase perverted by innuendo, the most gentle touch magnetic with desire, the most casual look sizzling with the promise of his future unraveling. Emphatic in this as in his every occupation, he let Dioren know how coveted his charms were at every available opportunity, though the peredhil was, due to extenuating circumstances, somewhat more cautious when voicing his own praise, not wanting his friend to turn unexpectedly maudlin. Even in company, they had to be vigilant, their bodies lured together by the other’s siren song even when the intended touch was merely supportive, or platonically tender. Dioren could not imagine, but anticipated with growing urgency, the gorgeous harmony their eventual joining would create, the mellifluous ecstasy that might then be known to them. He no longer feared any aspect or act of male coupling, as the overwhelming pleasures he had known under Rohrith’s exceptional tutelage had utterly abolished them. He longed only for his learning’s completion, to be able to rouse his lover to the heights he had soared and to be filled to the core by his passion. 

Yet such blissful unison would come at a severe emotional cost to his dear, deceivingly delicate friend. Dioren was beginning to suspect that Rohrith’s libido was more protective of his interests than first thought, to its merit. Yet he also could not much longer bear witness to Rohrith’s scathing abuse of himself when he failed to perform, nor how his patience had begun to fray. The night before, he had nearly wept – to quench his charred pride – when Dioren’s rather vigorous suckling had failed to rouse him even to slight firmness; he had been so bereft that he had flipped onto his stomach and ordered Dioren to mount him, if for pity’s sake alone. This had frightened Dioren such that he himself had softened, no mean feat for a peredhil on the cusp of majority, for which Rohrith was instantly in his arms, kissing his face and swearing that he only meant it in jest. Dioren had seized the opportunity for some calm discussion, assuring Rohrith that he wanted only his full recovery and suggesting that perhaps they had proceeded too quickly to overt physicality. This had soothed him some – for he knew only too well of his shortcomings and his relentless nature; they had even caressed for a time, before sleeping. 

With characteristic adamancy, Rohrith had, upon waking that morn, convinced him to exercise with blunted swords in the glade below his talan. The bright sun had banished any last lurk of gloom, so there was little chance of Dioren’s ensorcelling. Indeed, the verdant lawn practically begged to be trampled by boot swagger, mowed down by a tumbling back, or ground to shreds by an implanted heel, so fertile were its expanses. Dioren had made Rohrith swear that they would merely practice a few established sequences, but he would be a fool not to anticipate defiance. Even while his heart pulsed with fondness at the thought, the hairs on his neck bristled with worry. The impulse to fight had not sprung from a true desire, but from a lack thereof; never a good omen. Nevertheless, he had dedicated himself to Rohrith’s care; he could not now abandon, nor hector, him for his too-glaring mulishness. 

Therefore, they now stood with strike-poised swords beneath the bold sun, seizing each other up with more bemusement than ferocity. Rohrith, to his dismay, cut so feral a figure as if torn from his most tawdry fantasies; if the darkling elf continued to flirt so audaciously, even before combat, then he would perhaps suffer the breaching he had pled for the previous night. The first moves were strict, but he was married to them; in conformity and in routine would come the warrior’s thrall, where all consciousness dripped away and one swam through the air like the mer-creatures of legend. 

They continued on apace, neither dominant, Rohrith complying to the sequences with rather distressing stricture. Some impishness was no doubt being devised as they sparred, some insurgence, some improvisational flourish to unsettle him. None, however, was attempted. They parried and feinted with little ambition, the only tension rising between them of a physical palpability entirely unrelated to their stilted combat. Soon, Dioren was raptly concentrated not on the accomplishment of his swings, but on taming down his fierce arousal, which flamed with each clink of their swords. Soon, both were drenched with perspiration from just a few gentle sequences, for which even the warm sun could not be blamed. 

Suddenly, Rohrith halted them with a brusque gesture, lowering his weapon before any protest could be broached. Heaving for breath, he trudged over to a nearby tree and leaned his back against the cool bark, his face flushed nearly scarlet from their fight. Dioren threw his blade into the grass and went immediately to his side, fearing some fever afflicted him. He cursed himself for not thinking to bring a waterskin; instead, he brushed away the strands of hair stuck to Rohrith’s brow, silently offering any aid he might require, though he knew his friend was too proud to admit to his weakening. 

“What is amiss?” he prompted, ready to ply him with a kiss, still the most effective method of extracting information.

“Naught is amiss,” Rohrith answered, breaking into a rather salacious smirk. “Yet something is rather… painfully erect.” A bedazzling smile overtook his lush features. His eyes flicked downward where, to Dioren’s amazement, his breeches were manfully tented. With a faint, luring whimper, Rohrith latched an arm around him and secured him to his side, flattering the tip of his ear with his tongue. “Saes, Dioren… *touch* me. Grip me tight, claw me with conviction, finish me brutishly. I’ve grown desperate for release at your hand.” 

Maddened by his immolating words, Dioren bit a kiss into his neck as he yanked up his tunic, groping over his sensate chest until Rohrith howled with the most coveted frustration even known to him. His already puckered nipples were viciously pinched and twisted, so gorgeously that he knocked his head back against the trunk in rearing, his black pearl eyes already streaming joyful tears down his ruby-red cheeks. Dioren’s deft fingers gingerly plucked off his laces, shoved his breeches down, then hovered above his sleek, elegant erection, tantalizing the sensitive head with their close proximity. Dioren stole a moment to admire him, the pinkish tinge to the deep purple of his full swell, of decent girth but of an elongated stretch, such that his buttocks twitched in anticipation of his piercing by this luxurious length. With a growl of impatience, Rohrith pressed the frothing head into his palm, slicking it generously for the wild strokes it soon undertook. 

Dioren would have time, later, for gentilities. Rohrith was writhing with need, with breathless elation, coughing up mighty sobs even as he moaned out his pleasure. Dioren spared him no niceties, as requested, but wrenched impressively controlled pulls across his throbbing shaft, until Rohrith was nearly boneless against the tree, holding to his friend with a iron clutch that gouged deeper with every buck of his hips. He cursed with luscious vulgarity when he spent, voluminously milked of nearly a entire month’s worth of cream, which seeped into the glad, thirsting ground at their feet. 

With a crazed cackle, but moments after his recovery, Rohrith whirled him round and slammed him back against the unsuspecting tree, jabbing a famished tongue into his stunned mouth and mauling a kiss over his lips. The duel that ensued was the most sensuous he had ever known, Rohrith’s crude hunger enrapturing. Serpentine hands slithered under his clothes, over his tingling skin, loosening every tie that restricted them until his entire raiment was sagging off. The garments peeled off him as easily as petals from a bloom. He was guided up to their bedchamber by a giddy woodland sprite, who never lost a chance to paw at him, to pet him shamelessly. 

Once above, they paused a moment to stand before each other, gloriously naked and violently hard, primed for the pleasures their brimming bodies had so long promised them. 

Rohrith’s face shone with the light of the silmaril itself, his eyes of such an adoring glow that Dioren nearly denied him. Yet he could not rightly tare his own reverent gaze from the wolfine beauty before him. His heart sang with a confounding chorus of emotions, but none so much as the honest, earnest affection he bore this ethereal elf. He opened his arms to this new lover and welcomed him within his hot embrace. 

With a gleeful trill, Rohrith pounced on him. The following hours of rowdy, ravenous bed-play would forever be branded in his mind, scored into his very skin and writ across the flesh of his heart. The braising force of feeling was so visceral, he oft thought he’d been slain anew, but then Rohrith would nip at his neck, purr against his cheek, or teasingly slap his bottom, and his fever would break awhile. When, in the gloam of twilight, they collapsed into a tipsy, glutted heap of exhausted limbs and sated loins, they lingered about their coupling bed as the burnished sun sunk below the dusky treeline. 

Dioren felt, sheltered in Rohrith’s loose, loving embrace, as if he belonged. 

 

End of Part Three


	10. Rohrith’s Tale, Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a companion piece to Of Elbereth’s Bounty, which takes place between the action of the final chapter (16) and the epilogue, set centuries in the future. Some of the characters from OEB deserved to have their own stories wrapped up outside of the actual narrative of that tale. This particular tale, along with Ciryon’s Tale, concern the majority rites of two of Tathren’s triplet brothers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimers: Characters belong to that wily old wizard himself, Tolkien the Wise, the granddad of all 20th century fantasy lit. I serve at the pleasure of his estate and aim not for profit.   
> Author’s Note: While I think parts of this story can be understood on their own, I think it better to read the whole cycle, or at least Of Elbereth’s Bounty, to completely understand the world I’ve created and the character histories. The series is as follows: Part One is ‘In Earendil’s Light’, Part Two is ‘Under the Elen’, and the vastly larger Part Three is ‘Of Elbereth’s Bounty’.   
> Feedback: Would be delightful.   
> Dedication: To Eresse, as always.

Rohrith’s Tale – Part Four

Three Months Later

His hoarse, raving cries ripped through the cavernous hollow beneath the cascade, their resounding echoes a cacophonous symphony of keens and wails drowned out by the roar of the falls that walled in their hideaway. Moisture oozed off the teething stalactites, the mouth of the cave like the venomous fangs of a serpent poised to strike. Their hot, heaving breaths misted the chill air of this late autumn season, though the effluent spill of water trapped some humidity within, enough for a verdant tongue of moss to slither over the stone shelf, blue-tinged tendrils of lichen to snake up the craggy walls, phosphorous yellow barnacles spread like scales across the ceiling. The cushy bed of bracken massaged his back as he was pummeled into, the contrast of soothe and stab only incensing him further. 

Mighty with bluster and fume as a thunder-deity soaring above the sea, Dioren clamped a mauling hold on his violet-swell member and deftly steered him, with sure, singeing strokes, through waves upon waves of sundering pleasure. His divinely inspired lover’s iron-brute shaft cleaved into his meaty buttocks, spearing manically into his core as if mining his flesh for merciful relief. His red skin blazed as if flayed by whipping, sweat steamed from his every pore. The scars, bites, and strips from their maiming foreplay sizzled, stung. The bays and howls this feverish rutting wrenched from him went beyond any semblance of elven dignity or poise; their fucking was primordial, elemental, crude as the very ore of their instinct. Yet with every thrust, every pound of that excavating erection, the gutting ecstasy of Dioren’s sex wrecked him, ravaged him, *owned* him as surely as any binding compact.

His fingers were scraped bloody as he scoured for a hold in the corrugated rock of the wall behind, his spine contorted as suffering the peredhil’s consuming passion became nigh unbearable. When the first rumblings of his climax shook through him, he quaked, then spasmed, then thrashed as if possessed by some debauched fertility god, until his back arched at an impossibly acute curve and he volcanically erupted. He spewed a fierce, scalding gush over Dioren’s sleek abdomen, which poured down the wash of his stomach such that he lost all manner of sense. With a last stab into the silken heat of Rohrith’s still seizing body, Dioren spent himself, cursing wildly at the force and impact of his blistering orgasm. 

Once his lover’s gorgeous, crushing weight collapsed over him, he sucked in desperate gulps of the misty cave air. He carefully shifted them into a more leisurely spread, but hardly thought to move out from under Dioren, who already grumbled out the rough snores that announced his oncoming nap. Rohrith wrapped a loose embrace around his leonine frame and nuzzled a ruddy cheek into his golden mane in a cursory show of tenderness; the violence of their coupling would not be too easily dismissed by the trivialities of after-care. 

While the steadily increasing voracity of their erotic encounters disturbed him greatly, he could not rightly forgo any opportunity to be one with his Dioren, maddened by his scorching touch and crazed by his caresses. Each second he was not writhing in those luxurious arms, he craved to be so embroiled with an unyielding intensity. Whether indulging in the torment of slow, sensuous penetration, the rigors of ardent, athletic play, or the carnivorous rapture that had just devoured him, their loving was becoming a vicious addiction. Through every chore or activity of their day, desire simmered within, such that he at times feared that he was loosing the purer tenor of his affection for his dear friend. 

That their company of loyals was not appraised of the newfound intimacies of their relationship did not aid much in the keeping of his composure. Indeed, the necessary secrecy only served to bait his impetuous streak, causing him to be more willful in his demands of them, more domineering in debate, and more protective of his private time with Dioren. Their companions were quick enough to connect this covetous behavior with Dioren’s delicacy in these vital months of his peredhil development; if any suspected a more personal motive, none dared speak of it. Yet Rohrith’s grappling for the prime position within their set, which he had ever been granted regardless, only proved his own susceptibility, his own vulnerability to the irascible self-doubt that plagued him as a result of their molten coupling sessions and the strange behavior this evoked in him. 

It was a testament to their honorable repute that they had not yet been caught out. After flirting surreptitiously the day long, their nights were smeared scarlet. Never had he bowed so fervently in worship of another’s glories and graces, such went against the fiery flint of his nature. Never had he given himself so entirely to another’s will, nor submitted himself to another’s dominance. His very essence, though fiercely self-controlled, was untamable. Yet time and again in their bed-play Dioren overtook him, ravished him, *had* the whole of him. Rohrith could not reconcile himself with the ease in which he was cowed by a flick of tongue, a teasing smile, a saucy squeeze. He often felt he would do anything in the name of giving Dioren pleasure, as evidenced by the frequency with which they were bedded and the relentlessness of their mutual need. 

In the few ponderous moments left him, Rohrith would stare at the buttressed ceiling of his bedchamber and wonder what he had become. Perhaps he merely recognized the flaws of the elf he had been; prideful, tending to flatter himself with false pretences of power, and pining for an ephemeral phantom of a love, strident to a fault and ignorant of the damage left in the wake of his blind charges forth. Yet his malleability under Dioren’s too salacious ministrations terrified him; that his mental stability could be so beholden to another’s touch, that he could achieve fulfillment while being wholly overpowered, that… that he liked to be ridden more than he enjoyed riding. 

His only consolation was that Dioren was less convinced of his own preferences and routinely urged him to vary their positions, intensity, or favored acts. That Dioren had developed into such a giving, mature, yet insatiable lover was a continuous blessing to him; he did not demand Rohrith’s obsessive regard, nor did he yet feel worthy of such meticulous attentions, no matter how he reveled in them. If ought, Dioren did everything to deserve them – concealing his desire when in company, doting upon him after their more riotous sessions, attending to his every complaint with kindness - which only endeared him more. That Dioren was only too aware of his sacrifice would perhaps delay their eventual breaking some, but not indefinitely. Rohrith had no idea how he might come to stomach such a blow, after months of hallucinatory bliss between them. He could not, however, give Dioren up, not even if his own sanity were at stake; as well might become the case. 

Overall, his own naivety in this exploratory undertaking was becoming all too apparent. His earlier lovers had satisfied him, but none had been so entrapping a lust as to shackle him to some hulking slab of steel, waiting to be cast overboard by his restored lover and, after his eventual rejection, unceremoniously sunk to the ocean floor to await suffocation. He dared not think of the troubles that might beset him if the love for Dioren he thought long fled was yet imprisoned within the dank cells of his heart, lest fear provoke him into further, unadvised declarations. Best to forget the softer emotions entirely, instead feeding on the famished physicality of their coupling, whether sweet, rough, or rowdy. 

Best to focus on the moment, and leave the rest to fate. 

He broke from his silent musings to discover Dioren’s clear blue eyes observing him, his head perched atop two arms folded across Rohrith’s own slick chest. The tenderness that shone from those tranquil pools was deceptively sincere; though Rohrith was ever-vigilant against ensnarement, he could not entirely dissuade his cheeks from blushing. The smile that resulted brimmed with unchecked emotion, enough for him to quietly mourn the loss of their pure friendship, for he believed their cunning and complicity would be irretrievable, once their relations had ceased. The silky kiss that softed over his lips only made this eventual truth all the more unbearable, such that he was forced to pull away, to swallow back a sob. 

“You are fraught,” Dioren whispered, his eyes wet with penitence. “I have been too rough with you.” 

“Nay,” Rohrith assured him, rather unconvincingly. “I adored your roughness such that I crave it still. I may have taught you male-bedding, but through your own innovation you have mastered the art such as I had never conceived of. My body sings with approval.” 

“Yet your soul is shroud,” Dioren countered, with no little concern. He shifted his brawny weight to Rohrith’s side, curled dotingly against him, his conversation peppered with caresses to his ear, temple, neck, and shoulder. “Think not that I have forgotten the burden you ever bear, though I know our coupling does nurture this feeling some. If you, dear one, need reminding of my gratitude, I would be more than glad to recall it to you with tender care, this night. I am not such a brute that I cannot bring your pleasure through patient, indulgent stimulation.” 

“I know only too well of your talents,” Rohrith murmured approvingly. “But will you not let me attend you, this eve?”

“Tis you that are sorrowful, moren vain,” Dioren gently objected. He soothed a lingering touch down the side of his wolfine face, met the adamant black eyes with steady confidence. “Let me care for you, Rohrith. I see well how your faculties are wearied by the stress of our explorations, though you would never admit to any such weakness. Perhaps… perhaps I ask too much of even one so resilient and willful as you. Perhaps we should desist, for a time…”

“You wish to break with me?!” Rohrith rasped, his features instantly clenched with pain, though inwardly he cursed himself for his too-evident vulnerability. If Dioren had sated himself of their lust, then he must face the consequences as boldly as an enemy front. 

“Nay, nay!” Dioren exclaimed, claiming his lips to calm him. Yet inwardly, he worried at how easily Rohrith was riled, how the slightest mention of slowing their ardor some launched him immediately into near hysterics. He would be twice as sweet to him, this night, doubly caring and triply warm. “I think only that we both might require some… some distance, from our fervor. My desire for you is as ever – it rises as we speak – but I am moved as much by regard as by the realities of my condition. Unless a separation is forced, I will want your attentions day and night. But for you, my darkling dear, for your peace… perhaps you should reconsider your Adar’s invitation and join their hunting party. Twould replenish you to journey awhile with your family. The forest wilds, too, will restore you, allow you to properly digest the overwhelming events of the last few months. Then you will return to me calmer, more centered… and, hopefully, ravenous.” 

Rohrith had been scowling, but could not help but smirk roguishly at his last remark. 

“Tis but a ploy to have me gagging for you,” he taunted. “I know explicitly of your Sinda wiles, maltaren-nin.” After some consideration, he came to see both the reason and the need for a brief respite from their voraciousness. Absence, after all, was known to make the heart grow fonder. 

“As I am only too sharply aware of your stubbornness,” Dioren repeated. “Thus I will reiterate that tis in your best interests to comply, my proud Noldo companion. Else I will complain to your grandsire of sudden fits of cloying fatigue that overcome you, and suggest you be confined to the Healing Halls for a time.” 

“Are you certain there is no other you would indulge with in my absence?” Rohrith raised a pointed brow, though well understood the jesting implicit in their tone. “One of the melon-muscled builders at the colony, perhaps, or some brash, seafaring paramour from the coast, come inland for a tryst.” 

“I swear, your absence will torment me nightly,” Dioren promised him, his pained face in glaring earnest. “But you cannot claim all the glory. I, too, must make some small sacrifice to ensure your health and cheer. Tis the least I can forfeit without tempting madness myself, and so I must. And so I will.” 

“They depart on the morrow,” Rohrith reminded him, his features fluid with tenderness. “You must indulge me with all your skill this night, Dioren, so that my dreams might sate me in your absence.” 

“I will worship you the night long, dear one,” Dioren vowed rakishly. “Yet why tarry till evening, when the afternoon’s still bright and balmy?”

His ice-blue eyes shimmered with such keen desire, than Rohrith was instantly, irrevocably lost. 

* * *

The last days of autumn were uncommonly lush in the woodlands to the south of Telperion. Both bountiful foliage and forest paths were colored in hues of amber, vermilion, rust, and ochre, fringed by dark evergreen pines. Though the wind was crisp with mountain chill, the air was rich with the scent of mulch. Dozy sunlight rippled in peachy and pink ribbons across the lake by which they had staked camp, the dusky cobalt of the water sign of winter’s incipient sweep down from northern climes. 

The yield of their hunt had been plentiful. While Ciryon built up the fire, Tathren and Tinuviel skinned the various hares, quintails, boars, and the few deer they had caught, leaving the meaty carcasses to Brithor’s conservation treatment. Their fathers had consistently reminded them to hide their quarry in a far off cave and they in turn recalled to their overprotective elders that the shores of Aman were free of the usual, carnivorous predators of Arda. That their industrious family worked as a sacrosanct, though unabashedly mercurial, company, whether on the hunt, settling camp, or traveling through the wilds, was a source of enormous pride to its sires, who nightly nested their strapping clan by the fire and basked in the ruddy glow of their faces. When Elrohir or Legolas did speak, it was to encourage one to continue with a ribald tale, to vivify an anecdote, or to tut at some sly jest; they thrived on the warmth and fraternity between their children as bees on flower pollen. 

Rohrith deeply admired that his fathers regarded their parenting success as a symbol of the strength of their bond, of the peerless feeling that still besot them. For there was no mistaking their mutual adoration, the stolen looks, stealthy caresses, wry smirks, and brimming kisses that told of their longtime complicity, in mischief and in love. This private holiday with family allowed them to both express this fondness without fear of impropriety, yet the presence of their children kept them uncommonly chaste. Though this was hardly a true stress for them, Rohrith had a new appreciation for how it must prick them some to be surrounded by relentless reminders of their cause for marital celebration and be unable to revel in such blessed fortunes. 

Implicitly aware of such undercurrents in his fathers’ relationship, he was unsurprised to discover Legolas, when he was bidden fetch them to dinner, lazed against a tree by the crystalline lake, in rapt observance of Elrohir as he bathed. When still unnoticed, Rohrith stopped to observe him awhile, himself captivated by the complex, complimentary mixture of emotion in his golden father’s eyes. An effluent love was the most potent feeling within those shimmering aquamarine pools, melded with reverence, fierce respect, a drop of nostalgia, and a constant, rushing flow of desire bubbling bright. At times, the gaze was as distant as the vast expanses of ocean, as if Legolas were at once seeing his childhood companion, his friend, his first lover, his beloved, and his mate all at once; Elrohir through all the ages of his eternal life. At times, they shone pure as a cliffside beacon, luring the vessel of his heart to its tender berth within him. Rohrith could not imagine how his darkling father bore such a worshipful stare, even from twenty paces away; if a lover foist such a devastating regard upon him, he would be bowed before him to swear his heart away. 

Curious, his own gaze flickered over to Elrohir, occupied with nothing more illustrious than lathering his ebony head with the syrupy liquid soap Tathren had brought, an innovation in adventuring hygiene from the alchemists at Gondolen. The even-cut ends of his velvety hair hovered above the surface, when not slithering down his bare back or over his broad shoulders. As both Dioren and Tathren, his sire was a peredhil, but his darker hue did fascinate a son so lately admiring of the differences between pureblood elves and the hybrid breeds. Not that the hallowed elf-knight of Imladris was in any way diminished by his manly lineage. If ought, the thick, black bracken that covered his taut pectorals, thatched in the cove of his arms, and stripped sparsely down to his navel was an even more potent image of peredhil virility than the wispy gossamer pelt that adorned half-elves of Sinda or of Dorian ilk. As an adolescent, he had shrewdly compared his maturing frame to his sire’s, ever-conscious of how much of his mannishness may have been bequeathed to him. 

Little, in reflection, as his limbs were lithe and his skin sleek; though if in the secret moments that he did concede to himself the fact of his own beauty, it was ever-linked to his parents’ graces. He knew he had his mother’s lushness, her buttery skin, obsidian eyes, and wolfine features. Yet his luxurious raven hair, limber build, and the sheen of inner light that glistened over the whole of him was all elf-knight, the eloquent Noldor countenance given life by the union of bold Earendil and ethereal Elwing. His starlit graces has unwittingly seduced enough suitors for Rohrith to recognize how such regal characteristics were coveted by wantons, but only in the burnished stares of Legolas, Glorfindel, and Ivrin upon their respective beloveds could he earnestly recognize the font of his own comeliness, even if he instantly dismissed this trait as unworthy of one who preferred the cultivation of the mind. 

When Elrohir dove into the lake’s frigid depths to rinse himself of the soap, his golden father broke from his fervent admiration and, with a curling whistle, beckoned him forth. Instead of rising, he patted the ground beside, motioning for his son to join him. Rohrith was a bit dubious as to the continuing chastity of the circumstances between his two fathers, but nevertheless heeded to his desire and plunked down, reclining against the giving bark of the tree. 

“Twas a mighty stag you felled, this day,” Legolas praised him, weaving an arm around his slim waist and drawing him near. “For a sword-lover, you make a fine archer.”

“Tis Tinuviel who is the true talent among us,” Rohrith easily shrugged. “My stag was perhaps a lucky catch, but little yield against her five hares, two birds, and three fearsome boars. Her gifts in archery are fierce. She is your heir, Ada. A pity there are no more orcs to slay, for she would extinct them all from Arda.” 

“I pray her talents will be put to far better use, in peaceful times,” Legolas quietly replied. “I pray that all my rabid-eyed children find completion in a task of their preference and choosing, not a quest, an irrefutable call to arms, with odds so overwhelming as to terrify even the wisest minds among our elders. I fought so that none of you would be forced to defend our people, so that we might enjoy such a golden time as this hunting trip.” 

“And I have relished every second of our journey, Ada,” Rohrith assured him. “Indeed, we must resolve to steal our family away more often. Tis well to traffic among loved ones, after such harrowing times as have beset me of late. The instant we crossed the lower river, I felt such ease overtake me! I have not felt so free, and yet so secure, since elflinghood.” 

“I am glad of it,” Legolas smiled softly, plucking a kiss from the crown of his hair. “Though we have struggled mightily not to interfere… your Ada-Hir and I have been rather anxious for you. By all accounts, your are experiencing a peerless time of leisure with one quite dear to you, yet… I fear all is not frolics and ravenous nights.” 

“I assure you, Ada, there are ravenous nights aplenty,” Rohrith smirked, to hide his encroaching sadness. “I was startled by… the fever of it. How entirely and unyieldingly the rapture possesses you. I never thought I would… it worries me, at times.” 

“The loss of self?” Legolas considered. “Aye, tis a startling thing. As ellon and as warriors, we are taught strength, implacability, and the clever use of force from our swaddling beds. A soldier’s ways become our own; in wartime, there is no place for pliancy, for exposure, for submission, yet in a lover’s bed, these elements are key to experiencing the headiest forms of pleasure, to sharing oneself with a beloved. As one who has embraced the rigors of swordsmanship to the extreme and one who tends to lead stridently on, I am not… entirely surprised that you find such sensations mildly distressing.” He thought a moment, then added: “Especially when you doubt your lover’s heart, whilst your own has been longly ensnared by him.”

Rohrith sighed, then murmured: “Your aim is ever true, Ada.” 

“Then perhaps you will heed some of my longtime warrior’s wisdom,” Legolas responded, with some amusement. “Though I am hardly as accomplished an advisor as your Ada-Hir, who seems to divine motivations from the clean air itself, I know something of reservation, when embroiled in the scarlet thrall of a constant lover’s bed.”

“Go on,” Rohrith insisted, lifting his head to better read his features. 

“When first your Ada-Hir and I were bound,” he related. “Though I loved him madly and we passed the years in bliss, the Shadow’s threat ever loomed over our relations. We knew even before our binding that I would be called to arms, that the very purpose of my begetting was to undertake my quest with the Fellowship. When one is bred for such a dreadful task… embracing a love with every speck of one’s soul is a monumental challenge. While I loved your father with my whole self and gave the flame of my soul to our binding… I never expected to survive the quest. I thought him the prize before my fall, the early recompense for my impending sacrifice. While I relished him and reveled in our bed… I could never indulge in thoughts of the future, as he was prone to do. In every kiss that I pressed to his lips was an urgency I could not control; if I devoured him, it was to take every last taste I could bear. Every love-act between us was shroud by the knowledge that one day there would be a last, that there was a limit to our bliss and so our rapture must fire with twice the effulgence, thrice the blaze. At times, I abandoned all sense of decency and gave myself to his most rakish desires. Though he did not mean to debase me, I allowed him past my own limitations and gave everything I had, whilst I could give it.” Rohrith had grown terribly still, his father’s words striking a sharp chord within him. “Yet my compliance frightened me. I wondered at the elf I had become, if I even enjoyed some of the debauchery we undertook together. Over time, your father saw brief glimpses of my reluctance, of my sadness afterwards, and because he is the most intuitive and caring mate imaginable, he cautiously questioned me. Twas he who advised me to live in the present moment, to forget the quest awhile, to slow the manic pace of our carnal relations and to nourish myself with gentler affections. Through patient trials, I learnt what pleases me best, and what areas might be explored in the future, once more confidence was gained. Twas not that I did not enjoy some aspects of submission, but that my stoic nature made me abuse myself for the pleasure I took and thus such acts must be performed with my delicacy in mind.”

“Do you… enjoy these acts presently?” Rohrith questioned hesitantly, stunned by his candor.

“Ever with caution,” Legolas impressed upon him. “There are nights when I crave them, there are nights when I cannot stand the thought. Now that the quest is past and I have learnt to embrace the peaceful time, I am more inclined towards daring in our bed-play, though the years after the Shadow’s fall had their own lessons for me, as well as the fraught time of Tathren’s begetting.”

“Yet ever were you supported by the constant love of a binding mate,” Rohrith noted morosely. “I am not blessed with such a luxury.” 

Legolas fell silent, meticulously considering his following statements. 

When he spoke, it was with winning conviction: “I do not believe that is so.” 

Teeming black eyes flew up to lock with his father’s, Rohrith’s resigned and Legolas’ adamant. 

“Ada-“ he attempted to object. 

“Dioren is in a perpetual fugue,” Legolas remarked. “But even through such a dense fog, he saw the light of your friendship. Even through the haze of conflicting desires, he fell into your bed. Now that the mist has nearly burned off, he will not fail to mark your vigilance, the glorious aura of your heart. To whom does he run, when his stormy spells lurk about? In whose home does he reside, in whose bed does he nightly lay? Your love envelopes him in the promise of peace, of rapture, of the care he has ever longed for. Once whole… he will no longer be immune to your devastating charms. Fret not, my brave one. He will love you.” Legolas tucked a stray strand behind his pensive son’s ear, grinned like the wood-elf he was. “If he has not already suffered such a joyous revelation, and keeps the knowledge from you, lest it spoil your honey-time.” 

Rohrith scoffed at his characterization of their rather molten togetherness, but could not help but essay a smile of his own. He prayed his father was not mistaken, but could not yet truly absorb such a notion, such incendiary possibilities for his uncertain future. 

When Legolas’ iridescent eyes turned back to the vision in the lake, he was startled to see said vision striding up to join them. Elrohir’s silken skin still glistened with beads of moisture and his sopping hair was strewn fetchingly over his bare shoulders, as he had not bothered to put on more than his breeches. Yet he scowled mirthfully down at his golden mate, as his lissome frame was raked over by a roguish, unrepentant stare. 

“Gawk all you will, bereth-nin,” Elrohir chided him, with obvious affection. “Indeed, why do you not summon all our children to the lakeside, so they might bear witness to the boldly lecherous way their father looks at his five-centuries husband in their tender presence.” After a rather Elrondian huff, he hastened to addend himself. “Verily, Legolas, tis scandalous how you appraise me!” 

Both Rohrith and Legolas himself laughed belly-deep at his feint, the son wisely rising to quit his fathers before their quarrel turned severe. He also thought to assure them some privacy, as, after his husband’s rousing taunt, Legolas’ glare had gone somewhat predatory. In answer to his mischievously hectoring husband, he leapt to his feet, strode imperiously towards the smirking elf-knight, and winched such a decadent kiss into his mouth that, after his tongue had been sucked purple and their chests pressed hotly together, it nearly left him winded. 

“You best advise your siblings not to leave camp for a while,” Legolas instructed his son, but did not take his wanton, dagger eyes off his panting mate. “Lest they be *scandalized* by a most distressing sight. They might especially keep from the slope over the far bank.” He mauled another kiss over Elrohir’s shivering lips, which could not quite yet form the words to object to his husband’s brazenness before their son. “Do not bother to hold dinner for us, we will have our fill of each other. We will return before midnight. Do not fear, in the blackness, the wilding sounds that might cry out; but stay among your brothers and keep your sister mirthful.” 

With a final nip at Elrohir’s red mouth, Legolas led his husband off for loving. Rohrith could not help but be heartened by the fire that lit his fathers’ devotion, by the smoldering sensuality that sustained their eternal bond.

That night, he prayed with uncommon conviction that his immortal life might be so blessed. 

* * *

Twas the icy streak of warning up his spine that woke him, the spiky, tingling sensation that pricked the elven half of his body alert. The chill air shocked him live, as he rolled over the coarse ground and grappled to his feet; though once risen he swayed brusquely, like a willow in a gale. Bare-chested and barefoot, clad in but a ragged pair of clammy breeches, he staggered over to a supple-barked elm and pressed against its slender trunk, hoping to draw some warmth from the consoling tree. Shuddering fiercely in the cold, he begged for the ancient one’s guidance, as to how he came to sleep in a bumpy bed of its gnarled roots, where he lost his raiment and weaponry, what kindly wood was this that secured him, and, most vitally, if there was any trace about of his identity. 

For he did not know himself. 

Another shriek of foreboding flared within, such that he recoiled as if from the lash of a whip. A wilding wind howled through the gloomy wood, braised the tender skin of his torso a violent red, as he tottered and flailed through the near toppling gusts. He drunk in gut-heaving gulps of the fetid stench of decay, of freshly flayed viscera, as the air about thickened to a treacly murk. Shadows stretched their spindly, ominous fingers out from beneath every looming bough, until he was so unnerved by the unnatural feeling about him that he fled the frigid thatch of elms and raced into the dense nest of the weird forest.

He felt keenly that some nebulous enemy was after him, that there was some lone, rickety sanctuary about, if he could only rally his confusion-clogged mind long enough to intuit the way. Yet he dared not halt his progress, for the exertion focused him; the only certitude he clung to was that to stop cold was to court an attack he was pathetically unprepared to defend. He sensed that the ghost of memory was ever but steps behind. As his extremities began to buzz, his periphery blurred and his itinerant lunges grew lugubrious. He knew that the fugue, if not the lurking threat, had caught him up. Soon he was lumbering over the mulchy grass like a drunken swain, wandering through the mist with listless arms hung about his sides, his glassy eyes despondent. 

The elfling had taken full, strangling possession of him.

Although Dioren alternately hurled and stumbled about the perfectly serene woods, the true battle was being waged by two sylph-like spirits within the ephemeral, abstracted confines of his enfeebled mind. As the haunted echo of his former self fought to sing of the wintering of his first soul, the second, embittered conjuration struggled to mark his woeful refrain, to blend his too-eloquent sorrow into a sole harmony without loosing his own autumnal lament to ether, to an eternity’s awaiting. His simpering eyes saw only the Mirkwood about him, his senses shivered with the glacial frisson of impending attack. His lap felt crusted with seed, as if he’d just woke from a giddy tumble with his lover; indeed, hovering beneath the death-reek was the lofty fragrance of ederwood and waterfalls, of Hirlorn’s steady, smoldering presence at his side. 

Aflight in the rush of memory, he knew again the intoxication of this first, forbidden love, an elf of the esteemed Imladrian guard who had stolen off to Mirkwood to be with him. They had met cute, that calamitous day in the gloaming woods; their unexpected reunion and their future’s promise so monumentally affecting that they had shed their garments where they stood and fallen straight to loving. He had gleefully been rid of his innocence, until the trees about – not yet ensorcelled by the shadow’s thrall – had screeched with emergency of some befouled interloper’s stealthy approach. They had dressed with scattershot haste, parted with an incendiary kiss, though neither could ever have imagined it would be their last. 

Gutted with grief at his greener self’s heartbreak, Dioren slammed into the carcass of a fallen oak, doubled over his quaking legs, then vomited a bilious spew up from his very innards. This vicious purging allowed him a moment of clarity, a frail hold over his spinning sense; his warrior’s instincts took instant possession. He must remain lucid within the cyclonic visions of this final, lethal spell, he must seek out the only sanctuary that might save him. To keep sane, he made a tally of the days he’d spent since Rohrith’s departure. Though he counted four, he could by no means be certain that he had not lost the last few, that he had not been slipping in and out of purposeful consciousness for the entire stretch of time. His whereabouts were itchingly familiar to him, but he could not place himself within the vale’s topography, not when memory scratched at the back of his eyes and all he saw before him was Mirkwood gloom. 

The skittish flap of a bird’s wings to the west became the fleet whiz of an arrow shot by his ear; before he could blink, he was flung back to his first elflinghood. 

Though not a sniveling wretch was visible, they both knew they were surrounded. The rank, oily smell of orc’s blood had soaked into the air about, their snarling breaths were too heavy to mistake, to muffle from elven ears. Hirlorn grabbed him by the arm and guided him through the trees, his gallant was too shrewd to lead heathen straight to the city gates, through they had no other means of escape. He knew, then, that they would fight and fear staked into his swollen heart, where only minutes before it had been ripe with wonder at love’s illumination. Yet Hirlorn was a fighter of some renown to have been apprenticed to Lord Glorfindel himself and Dioren’s sword was like his sixth appendage. Orc bands were rarely more than twenty odd scoundrels, of considerable opposition but hardly daunting to two young elves. As their pace quickened, his jowls pooled with the metallic taste of adrenalin, with salivary yearning for some blood sport, for the slaying of seething orc flesh. 

The naming of the Balrog-slayer roused him anew from memory’s bleak cast. He must veer towards Glorfindel’s talan, he must anchor himself to the base of the stair, he must call him down from its vertiginous heights and collapse into his arms, as only he would be clever enough to slap some sense into him, if he must. Only when the fierce tremors of fast, pounding steps knocked against his drowsy face did he realize that he already clung to the quavering mithril banister, that he was huddled up on the bottom stair and that Glorfindel himself dashed down to him. 

The frosty wind had blanched his skin a spectral white, though he sweat as though he was roasting on a pyre. Though limp with exhaustion, Glorfindel could barely pry him off the rail; once freed, Dioren slammed him back with a stunning blow to the chest and sprinted off into the fog only he perceived. Glorfindel, once recovered, tracked him easily enough. Catching him without causing undue harm would be another matter entirely. 

An urgent, insurgent tattoo throbbed through Dioren’s veins, as he wrenched his sword from its leather scabbard and sliced his first victim in twain. The menacing horde was about them, a dozen blades of treacherous talent, but not yet swift enough to even graze one of elven speed. When not a hissing orc, but a demon-eyed man, fell dead before him, when he was glutinously spattered by the hot spray of his red, mortal blood, only then did the weight of recognition crush into him. The brigands had disguised their scent, drenched themselves in orc innards to fool the elven patrol sure to investigate the bludgeoning of two hapless younglings, though Dioren’s sword had yet a slash or two in protest of such a tragic outcome. Indeed, though he could not guess at what incited the men to act so witlessly against them, he had not time to mull over this strange circumstance as he dodged, stabbed, and blocked their hacking blows, every muscle in his strung body poised to mangle, maim, and murder. Yet even though he would rather be gutted by these turncoats that see Hirlorn fall, the mannish half of him mourned the needless killing of his own kind, tensed at the thought that the very mortal ire that fuelled their fatal blows now spurned him on to vengeance against them. 

A cry rang out amidst the spits and growls of the battle, his name was cursed aloud. Some black-cloaked creature, more wolf than man, roared as he swung his venomed blade at Hirlorn, lopping his very head from his neck in a suffocating instant. His lover’s body, which he had smoothed so reverently over just moments before, spasmed and writhed as it slumped over, the severed head fixed in a look both fevered and forlorn. The army froze in rapt witness of their captain’s action; Dioren gaped in sundering astonishment, unable to speak. He sank to his knees, as the chieftain stalked over, towered above him, his face yet shroud by the inky hide of his cloak. 

When the hood was cast off, when his wiry yellow braids snaked down, when that sterile, iron stare bore down upon him, Dioren knew he was already conquered. 

“Ada,” he bleat, though it was not a plea for mercy, merely evocative of his colossal disbelief. “They told us… they thought… you *fell*.” 

“I owe you naught but abolishment from this sacred earth, scourge of my blood,” the chieftain spat. “I have wrought you. I will rid this land of you, half-breed.” 

“*Ada*,” he challenged, to provoke him further. He was nearly desirous of death, of the lethal swing of his broadsword, if only to brand this man the monster that he was in the eyes of those allied to him. “I am your child. I have done you no harm! Ever have I struggled-“ 

“No wrong?!” he simmered, but would not bother to boil for one so base. “We come upon you glutting yourself in elven perversion, flagrantly mating with one of the snobby starchildren, a *male* of the species, and you claim no injury upon the High Clan of Dunedain which sired you?!”

“How did you come to be so sick with hate?” Dioren asked, with feigned innocence. “You showered me with warmth, ere I grew to infancy; Nana told me so.” 

“That wretch is a sorceress,” he snarled. “And you are the spawn of her seduction, her treachery! Be gone from my sacred earth, you hopeless thing! Go to Mandos, and wait for doomsday, for he will keep you till the world’s end!” 

He was so fired with anger, he did not feel the strike that slew him. 

The clutch of Glorfindel’s arms seized around him, then all was black. 

*

With a grunt of frustration, Rohrith worked the head of the arrow loose within the torn flesh, then dug out the crimsoned flint. The terrified fawn twitched and buckled, unconvinced that his attacker had now become his rescuer. A gush of blood spurted up, streaking down his flank and staining his trembling hide. Rohrith stroked a gentling touch down his long back, marveling at the downy softness of the pelt even as he struggled vainly to soothe the wounded creature. He ripped off a swatch of leather from his own raiment to staunch the bleeding, though the fawn continued to mewl in panicked protest.

Rohrith hummed a lilting childhood lullaby, as much to comfort himself as the tense animal he had struck down. He prayed Elbereth would forgive him this injury to one too young to prey upon. The Valar allowed the hunting of mature stock for their survival, even for some savory meats to please them, but not the witless strike upon one of such tender age. He did not rightly know what had come over him. He had been stalking a fat, testy boar, to practice the technique Tinuviel had just that morn improved in his bow-handling, when the woods about him had grown sinister, strange. 

Loosing sight of the boar, he had crept stealthily about the wilds, alerted to the slightest quiver of leaf, ripple of grass, or breath of wind. He had been mightily unnerved by the feeling of acute devastation that had gripped him, an emptiness such as he’d never known before. The loneliness of the forest haunts was echoed by the hollow within him, as if the viscous flow of his blood had stilled and his bones had been cored of their marrow. He had wafted, phantom-like, through the stark winter trees, until what he’d thought was a flash of skin had livened him. That the marauder was more fleet than an elf, that there were no brigands in the woods of Aman, had not registered in his reason-flown mind, so bereft had he been at the absence gouged within him. Instinctively, he’d shot at the intruder, had been aghast at his error when the fawn fell with a dull thump to the forest ground. 

The creature’s movements grew sluggish, its eyes wandered, its hide stiffened. Nearly choked with remorse, Rohrith wrapped his arms around the fading fawn and begged its forgiveness in a quavering whisper. He poured every last ounce of the warmth within him into the dying animal as its body laxed and its whimpers ceased, his tunic so soaked with violet gore that it appeared some epic battle had raged between them. 

Twas thus that Elrohir discovered him, some time later, still entangled with the fawn’s leaden carcass. 

The elder guessed quickly enough what had transpired, though it was not like Rohrith to shoot so foolishly. Legolas had judged their brashest son fairly heartened by their quiet conversation the previous afternoon and it was unlike his husband to mistake in such conclusions, especially where their children were concerned. Yet the image before him was so tragic, Elrohir prayed it was not some onerous portent. 

With a firm but caring grasp, he pulled his grave-faced son from the fallen fawn, weaving a steady arm around him but wisely choosing not to coddle him outright. The symbolism of the mistake, as well as the empathetic nature of Rohrith’s reaction, spoke volumes of his vulnerable state of mind. He was relieved to see his son had not wept; his face was sallow with regret, but his cheeks were clean and pale. His weariness was palpable, almost fierce, and in no way the fault of the deer’s slaying. The worried father had not before reckoned how the burden of Dioren’s care, how the weight of Rohrith’s feelings towards him, might so perilously quash his resolve; he had thought his love as sustaining as it was draining, but his grieving over such a minor fault caused him to suddenly believe otherwise. Yet all he could think to do was stand by him, hold him upright, keep vigilantly by his side; as he had done with Elladan so many centuries ago. 

“I must build an altar, and offer him as sacrifice,” Rohrith decided morosely. “Do you think tis proper, Ada, to do so?” 

“Better that you consume him,” Elrohir remarked, never one for ornamental piety when some use could be made of a kill, however accidental. “His hide will make a fine swaddling blanket, and his flesh will be a rare treat. I have not dined upon fawn since my days in Rohan. Elladan will be quite jealous!” 

“They feast upon such younglings in Rohan?” Rohrith asked, incredulous. 

“They eat whatever they kill,” Elrohir explained. “They had not the luxury of sacrifice, not when scrounging for whatever quarry they could lure into the open grass. We are far more privileged than they, which is why we should not waste him. You may glower over your meal if you wish, ioneth, but the rest of us will marvel at his succulence. We are on the hunt, after all; our intent on this holiday is to provide for our people. If we mourn him, then we should mourn them all.” 

“Well reasoned,” Rohrith murmured, still beset by guilt. “Will you help me carry him to camp, Ada?” 

“I would be most glad,” Elrohir assured him, with a heartful squeeze. “And if you will all attend us, your Ada-Las and I will recount to you, by the fire’s glow, of our times in Rohan.” 

“I confess, you have intrigued me,” Rohrith essayed a smile, burrowing further into his father’s warm embrace. “Hannon le, Ada, for your wise counsel.” 

“Tis *my* privilege, nin-pen-ind,” Elrohir fondly responded, cinching his hold upon him. 

Yet he feared his son was still not completely out of the woods.

* 

Elladan parted the diaphanous curtains, unlatched the rickety shutters, and eased the tinted pane of the window open. A frigid wind whisked into the stuffy bedchamber, refreshing the stale air with the cottony scent of snow, though none had yet blanketed over the forest ground of crisp leaves and brittle branches. Even at such a late hour of the afternoon, twilight descended as blithely as a filmy brume over the vale; her smoky grays swathed around sage Taniquetil, heralding the winter season. 

An elongated exhalation sounded from behind, as lungs drank deep of the cleansed air. The pale figure snugly wrapped in the woolen sheets of the bed grappled out of his cocoon, though in the dusk one could hardly tell his ivory skin from their blanched material, nor his spill of brilliant gold hair from their gossamer fringe. Not wanting to crowd his patient, Elladan loomed by the window and watched the night drift down, the ghostly hollows of the forest beyond always held for him a gloomy splendor. 

“Rohrith?” a hoarse throat questioned from the bed. 

Dioren struggled to work himself out of the cloying sheets, but was too out of sorts not to be confounded by the endless lengths of white on white. The elf-warrior went to him, brushing a soothing hand over his brow and urging him to recline back into the plump pillows. He perched on the edge of the mattress, wanting to observe his charge awhile before deciding on the state of his wellness. 

“Nay, tis Elladan,” he announced himself. “Rohrith is yet on the hunt, with his family.” 

“I am glad of it,” Dioren smirked tentatively, both at the thought and at the steadying arm planted by his side, the other still occupied in warming him with tender, patient strokes. With eyes still muted by sadness, he met Elladan’s own quicksilver pools, and was heartened. The black memories still rippled beneath the surface of his calm, but he was now master over them. Yet he was not too proud to request comfort when he required it, and beseeched his guardian with a timorous look. “Would I be too brash… might I ask of you…? I know I am not your child, but…I would like if you…if you would hold me.” 

With a wide, effluent smile, Elladan nodded, then shifted his position to allow Dioren to lean against him and be enveloped by his arms. The peredhil sighed longly once berthed there, as if sinking into the embrace of a fond parent. The poignancy of the moment was not lost on the elf-warrior, who had fathered too many babes not to recognized the telltale signs of the need for succor. He was glad to see Dioren was fairly centered, if yet somewhat unnerved from the violent assault of his memories earlier; though when one was subjected to the revivified recollection of one’s own slaying at a father’s hand, twas a marvel he had weathered the trials so well and was indeed blessed by some newfound serenity. Still, a proper caretaker could not be too cautious. 

“How do you fare?” Elladan gently inquired. 

“Well enough, I suppose,” Dioren estimated. “When are they expected to return?” 

“In three days time,” Elladan informed him, not needing to clarify whom exactly was to come home. “Legolas just this hour sent word by dove-courier that they will be extending their stay a day or so. His letter could not have been more glowing nor descriptive, his very script rounded so officiously one would think the missive a formal writ. It seems Tinuviel was especially keen on the hunt and they require another horse to transport their yield. We have charged Orinath with the task he was only too eager to perform; he left just moments ago, proud as a peacock. Between the beaming of one terribly pleased father and one madly admiring suitor, the forest will blaze with a bonfire’s light. We will mark their approach from miles off!” 

When Dioren chuckled wryly at his jesting manner, his stomach growled in protest of its cavernous state. This only made him laugh all the more fervently, a sign of health which Elladan secretly relished. 

“It seems my hunger can also be heard at twenty paces,” the peredhil grinned sheepishly. “My stores may need some replenishment.” 

“It bodes well, then, that I have come to fetch you to supper,” Elladan gamely remarked. “If you prefer, I will have a servant bring your meal here, but if you feel well enough to join us at table, you are more than welcome. Twill be a merry party, as my sons will be in attendance, and you will be in heartful company, as they are both pining over their absent beloveds: Tathren on the hunt and Miriel visiting with her Naneth in Tirion.” 

“They will cheer me well, then,” Dioren acknowledged, as Elladan helped him to rise. 

His stance was surprisingly solid. Indeed, if one did not know of his earlier torments, one might believe him the very vessel of elven grace and mannish fortitude, so radiant was he. As he changed his bed-clothes for his tunic, Elladan could not help but remark his resemblance to Glorfindel; though where his Balrog-slayer was gloriously golden, Dioren was incandescent with the shimmer of starshine. Once the young peredhil was readied, he offered him his arm. 

He was equally surprised by his sudden hesitation. 

“I know not if you recall, Elladan,” Dioren timidly began. “But we have known each other before… in the earlier times of my life.” 

“Have we?” Elladan started, unaware that their paths had crossed in Arda. 

“Twas long ago,” Dioren explained. “We were both but striplings, barely past infancy. I suppose I remember that time for… for your kindness to me. My Naneth and I had just escaped from the enslavement of my Adar’s Dunedain band. We sought shelter in the Homely House, whilst she sent letters to request our safe passage home, to ask her kindred for too-necessary aid. Lord Elrond was most glad to offer us sanctuary, as I was a peredhil. He must have known all these years… must have kept his tongue so not to wrongly influence my progress.” 

“Twas you, Dioren?!” Elladan exclaimed, astounded at the revelation. “But my friend’s name was… Derion. Ai-ya! I see it, now.”

“The Lord thought it best, for our protection, that we conceal our true identities,” he elaborated. “Imladris was open, in those times, to a great many tradesmen, any of which could have unsuspectingly carried word of our whereabouts back to my Adar’s kin.” He paused a moment, realizing how perilous such knowledge had indeed proved to be. “Though I had ever had my Nana’s love, she was the only comfort to me among the Dunedain. I was shunned by the other children, hated for my strength and though odd for my slow development. When I came to Imladris, friendship was unknown to me. If not for you and Elrohir… do you recall the games we would play? The mischief we wrecked upon the valley! I think your Lord Adar was only too glad when my grandsire sent an escort from Mirkwood… but that summer changed my life. I would not have flourished so among the Sinda people without the friendship you so effortless bequeathed to me in that troubled time. And now… you gift me again with your support, your constancy. Your entire family has been… such a blessing to me. I would quite honestly have been lost without you, and I must thank you for... for each and every kindness.” 

Elladan blinked dumbly, still overwhelmed by crude shock. The ways of the Valar were unremittingly mysterious, that he should be thusly reunited with his childhood friend, even one he had enjoyed for only a season; that said friend should be a charge of his, beloved by his very nephew! His mind reeled at the peculiarity of the circumstance, of the sheer elvishness of the situation. Little wonder the other races of Middle-Earth had been so goggle-eyed at their ways and customs. 

“Forgive me, I am yet… astounded,” Elladan confessed. “This latest spell has polished up your memory to a sterling acuity, mellon-nin.”

“I have broke through, at last,” Dioren told him, with no little pride. “I know I am not alone in my struggles, that the gloom has cleared, that the woods I now inhabit are awash with sunlight and the elves that surround me are true. I know of myself; who I have been, who I am, who I must strive to become, at all costs.” He grasped Elladan’s arm with a sure grip, his sharp eyes alight with new confidence. “I know that I am loved.” 

As the clang of the supper gong echoed through the hallway beyond, Dioren latched arms with him and lead his long-lost friend to table.

* * * 

On the eve of their return to Telperion, the chill lady winter had skipped through the vale, sweeping her billowing skirts over vast fields and forest ground. Overnight, the paths, roofs, and woodland hollows were tucked snugly under a downy blanket of snow, their fringes bejeweled with spindly icicles. The heels of his fleet boots emitted a muffled crunch and his bulky cloak flapped furiously behind, as he strode across the glade towards his bough-berthed talan. 

Ciryon and Ivrin strolled leisurely a few paces back, huddled conspiratorially together, still gooey-eyed from their reunion. Rohrith could not reach the sanctuary of his sober apartment soon enough. Elrond had held a lavish supper to welcome his road-wearied family home, at which even Brithor had a loose-knickered serving maid to flirt with. Though his holiday had been quite fortifying, Rohrith could not help but be pricked by the constant, effusive displays of affection between the various couples in his family. His fathers, beaming with pride at the beauteous children before them, had been uncommonly demonstrative. Ivrin and Ciryon were less so, but the look of palpable relief that had overtaken the seafarer’s handsome features at their arrival had been unmistakable. Orinath had been effulgent with Tinuviel’s triumphs since catching up with them in the wilds; all were certain they would bind within the decade. Despite his true enjoyment of his younger siblings, Tathren had suffered some anguished nights away without his Echoriath’s sweetness; he had not relinquished hold upon him until their plates were served and he had no other choice but to release him. All the other celebrants were matches of star-crossed compunction: Cuthalion and Miriel, Erestor and Haldir, Elladan and Glorfindel, Lalaith and her suitor Glingal, even his grandparents flirted in their own, poised and elegant fashion. 

Dioren’s absence had hit him like a hard blow to the chest.

His grandsire had muttered some excuse regarding documents of considerable import come late that afternoon from a Gondolen messenger, that Dioren had not wanted him to cut short his holiday and so was preoccupied with their revision, but this did not help abate Rohrith’s suspicions. His unnerving sense that some errant fact or essential tidbit was being deliberately kept from him by his elders, that his desolation was being calculatingly postponed until all had recovered from their tiring journey home. Ever since the fawn’s killing, he’d known within that the air about him had thickened with portent, that some bitter truth awaited him here. Who else could this involve but the one who constantly haunted his thoughts, the one who obsessed and relentlessly attracted him, the one whose succor he craved above all the loved ones collected at the Lord’s supper table. 

After nearly a fortnight in the company of forlorn lovers, mooning and pining over their absent companions, Rohrith wanted nothing more than some patient, indulgent lovemaking. Not the furious throes of the last three months, but the peerless care of one who adored only him. If he had his wish, he would be greeted at the doorstep by one fretting over his whereabouts, lured with coos, kisses, and giddy inquiries into their cozy home, into enrapturing arms. They would sprawl across the bed and he would be meticulously undressed, as he recounted his adventures to a clever, inquiring mind. No longer would he have to search his lover’s face for the faintest spark of complicity, to battle against invisible, ambiguous woes, to deny himself a thousand touches, clasps, caresses in the name of caution. He would be free to love, with daring, with conviction, his heart unleashed. 

The craggy wood face of his entranceway door dispelled these fanciful notions; a vacuous darkness lurked behind. With an elongated sigh, he steeled himself for the slap of stagnant isolation, hunching his cloak further about his shoulders though he was about to go indoors. He carefully pushed the door open, then knocked his boots on the step, only dreading the formless black more for its apparent endlessness. 

After shutting himself in and unlacing his cloak, he was startled by a peal of droll laughter sounding out. Once vested of his weathering gear, he noted a mellow glow emanating from the common room, while the dimmer cast of candlelight flickered from the bedchamber. Following the echo of lively debate to his salon, he was stunned to discover a small company of his loyals assembled around his desk, Dioren chief among them. Rohrith loomed beneath the archway, absorbing not the familiar sight of his friends working, but the remodeled room. Dioren had taken a few liberties with the design in his absence, though these were so sage and suitable, Rohrith would not protest. 

He had never been one to slave over décor, to the point where his apartment was sparsely furnished; oft judged rather puritan, if alternative opinions had held any sway. Dioren had rearranged the layout of the room so that the dining area had its own regal stature and the hearthside a plush allure, while the study was demoted to a quaint crook of the alcove. Walled off by teeming bookshelves, the nook remained spacious enough to receive a few guests, but larger groups would be forced to lounge before the fire. The documents were obviously not the only booty delivered from the chests of Gondolen tradesmen, if the russet throws, maroon carpet, ornate lanterns, and rich violet blankets that adorned the exotically colored space were any testament to the gifts bequeathed them from the southern valley. Yet these vivid hues were not garish, but cordial, as if the vivacious, hotheaded, and often impassioned nature of their debates were painted on the very seats they reclined upon. As he wandered through his own salon, Rohrith could not keep his hands to himself, testing out every supple and bristly texture for its luxuriousness. 

He was so lulled by the brush of one velour throw against his cheek, that he barely registered the elated cry that rang out from the study behind, until he was tugged away from the velvety thing and crushed in the heartful embrace he had earlier craved. With relish, he drank in the cottony smell of fresh fallen snow, sunk into the blithe arms that enveloped him, the surge of feeling at this timely reconnection chocking off any last, doubtful gasps at the sincerity of his reception. Before he could even get a decent look at his lover, Dioren was culling thick, heady kisses from his too famished lips, their tongues flicking and flattering playfully. 

Twas a considerable while before he remembered their friends were about, so content was he to bask in Dioren’s amply displayed affections. 

He broke off quite suddenly, cheeks flaming, when he happened to steal a glance at the study and saw them both risen to greet him, though was somewhat disturbed to remark that they in no way seemed unnerved by the unprecedented show of physical ardor between their formerly chaste companions. He caught the curl of Dioren’s smirk out of the corner of his eye, as the peredhil was still molded quite flagrantly to him and was nipping flirtatiously at the lobe of his ear. Ianthir and Bregorn waited as casually as if in a receiving line at a binding rite, as if twas commonplace for their two friends to grope in their presence. 

“How I have wanted for you, nin bellas,” Dioren whispered, for him alone. “Over endless nights, I played and replayed this moment, craving its fulfillment, and now that it has come I almost fear to release you.” 

“Yet you best, Dioren, else our friends grow stricken,” Rohrith warned him, peeling gently away. Dioren’s hand lingered on his arm, as he bowed to their companions, though neither seemed shocked nor embarrassed by their behavior. None so much as he, at the least. 

“Mae govannen, Rohrith,” Ianthir formally intoned. “We’ve had word the hunt was plentiful.” 

“Twas indeed,” Rohrith rasped, still somewhat bashful. 

“I, for one, am glad of your return,” Bregorn continued. “If only to see Dioren smile again. We’ve had a time ensuring his good cheer.” 

At his troubled countenance, Ianthir descended the few steps of the landing and clapped a fond grip on his arm. 

“Do not look so solemn!” he chided affectionately. “We guessed long ago.” 

“Though we are hardly of the towering intellects standing before us,” Bregorn added. “We are not so witless as to mistake the brimming atmosphere between you for anger, or upset. The advent of your mutual adoration was made clear by autumn’s fall.” 

Rohrith, for once, was speechless. He sputtered some wordless syllables, as Dioren wove a firm hold around his waist and winked saucily at their friends. 

“Then you will now appreciate our keen desire for some privacy,” he remarked capriciously, to which both elves chuckled heartily. “Though I wish our leave from diplomacy could stretch on a few days, tis unfortunately not remotely within the realm of possibility, given the sudden summons from Gondolen. We will meet you, then, after noontime tomorrow in the Council Halls, to work out the intricacies of their request?” 

“Come as late as you please,” Bregorn told them. “We will take the documents with us and review long into the night.” 

“Aye, take your ease,” Ianthir agreed. “You both deserve some indulgence.” 

After some further instructions from Dioren, they went on their jovial way, wishing them a sultry night of the most scarlet revels. Rohrith was still inwardly agape as he was lead back to the entranceway, Dioren’s fingers teasing and twining with his own. He only managed to blink away his astonishment once their companions, and the sharp chill of winter, was locked out, when Dioren foist eyes of scintillating luster upon him and claimed his mouth anew. A rough, ready tongue massaged his own into purring compliance, the sugary taste of him quite maddening. Dioren, for all his imposing frame, was sweeter, softer than before. Twas not the only change Rohrith noted in him, but he could not yet tally them into a totalizing theory, as his dizzy head was somewhat intoxicated by the molten pleasure coursing through his weary body. 

“You are cowed by fatigue, lirimaer,” Dioren commented, his hot breath ghosting over his cheek. “Would you sleep awhile?” 

“Nay, nay,” Rohrith insisted, not entirely convinced himself. “I will suffer fiendish dreams without your balming touch to finish me.” 

“Perhaps a soak, then, would replenish you,” Dioren considered. “Shall I draw a bath?” 

“Will you join me?” Rohrith queried, nibbling at his lip. 

“Nay, I must tidy some,” Dioren sighed. “But I will prepare our bedchamber.” 

Rohrith was again dragged along behind, as if lost in a fugue of his own. He fumbled to undress himself, until Dioren had poured the bath. He was then stripped with gleeful flair and commanded into the steamy waters, those iridescent eyes live with rapt appreciation of his buttery skin and sinuous frame. He still could not quite make sense of his lover’s ethereal grace, how his radiance had somehow been amplified during his time away. Yet as he immersed himself in the sweltering depths of the bath, he forgot all but his own withering exhaustion, the strained muscles and the aching bones that the treated waters would likely remedy. 

When at last he swaggered, primped and patted into his usual wolfine swarthiness, into his bedchamber, the eloquent room was a sight to behold. Dioren had not restricted his revamping to the common room, but also blessed this sanctuary with his improving eye. What was once a plain and practical room was now a sumptuous oasis of satin, cashmere, and gauzy tulle, so opulent to the eye that he was almost roused by merely gazing upon the lush bedchamber. While moonlight streamed down in diaphanous beams from the skylight above, a panoply of candles was spread about their bed. The filmy blue sheets were of finest silk, the pillows voluptuous, the new coverlet painstakingly embroidered in a most telling portrait. A majestic reproduction of hallowed Imladris merged into a dulcet reminiscence of Greenwood the Great at the height of its splendor. Rohrith recognized the skilled needle of both of his grandmothers, which led him to question just when thought of these renovations had been conceived of. 

Yet he could not long linger on such frivolous details, as a figure of pure, devastating beauty wafted out of the shadows, to respectfully present himself. 

Dioren was a vision from his most burnished dreams of love. Though his majestic frame was feral with leonine potency, in the starlight he was luminous with otherworldly shine. His crystalline eyes glittered becomingly, his white-gold hair shimmered in unruly, cascading swaths. Where once a cold, distant countenance reigned supreme, a bedazzling radiance had been perfected. Nothing spectral, nor vaporous segued from this realm into the ether, he was a vital, visceral being before him: a presence, a power, a force. One that sought to snare him, one that bared him without a tug at his drooping sarong, one that moved forward with a bejeweled gaze that sought to mesmerize. 

Rohrith was breathless, shivering with anticipation, but Dioren halted, tantalizingly, inches before him and pierced him with a stare of such bald worship, he thought he might spend. The air between them sizzled with promise, with vows writ only in sweat and in seed. He could not reconcile Dioren’s gentled eyes with the brute takings he had known, could not keep his own from glowing with insatiable longing for him. His cheeks burnt with shame at the nakedness of his desire, as if his chest had been flayed open and his heart exposed to one who would wring it dry of loving. Dioren simply laid a tender hand on his breast, then, for a moment of such quiet intensity Rohrith thought himself spelled, he let the constant beats reverberate through his outstretched arm, echo through the flesh, muscle, and bone of his reverent body. 

A smile of such beatitude lit his starlight features, Rohrith could not longer keep still, nor rightly sane, if he was not nude, earnest, free of all inhibitions. If he did not kiss Dioren with such fever as to drive one witless, if he did not lash the flush pelts of their skin in a delirious friction, if he did not pillage the molten cavern of his mouth as if a barbarous marauder laying siege to a somnolent port. Dioren’s rumbling chuckles became ragged moans, as the length of him was fondled and petted with salacious abandon, until they were both beautifully, emphatically engorged. 

When Dioren wriggled out of his arms and eagerly knelt before him, Rohrith veritably thought his legs might give out. Through the miracle of carnal intuition, he was guided over to the bed and urged to recline back on his elbows, before lips of exceptional pliancy and vigor lavished their plump curves over his violet-veined erection. He could not have been more sensationally devoured. Dioren made quite a show of tormenting him to the furthest limits of his capacity; gingerly laving a rabid tongue over his spuming tip, only to pinch him back to momentary sentience and begin his manic licks again. Rohrith was soon so desperate to shoot that he’d chewed his cheek bloody. With a wicked glint, Dioren recognized his need and, snarling decadently, swallowed him down. He spent into that gorgeous throat with a force that shocked him, his thrall lasting so that Dioren was still drawing jolts of pleasure down his thighs, up his chest, and over his clenched buttocks for long minutes after, as he trembled, groaned, and quaked in the wake of his release. 

Dioren’s eyes were giving as ever, when he brushed their ruddy faces together, sipping honeyed kisses from his tipsy lips. Yet the incredible troths he whispered after were enough to incense even the surest mind to madness. 

“I fear your beauty will be my undoing,” Dioren told him. “My shepherd to Mandos’ halls, if my heart is not met with equal fervor. If I cannot name you forever my own, melethron.” Rohrith nearly swooned at the impact of the doting appellation, at the very potent meaning behind his torrid words. “You must have me now, Rohrith, love me slow and deep. I want to know you. I want to burn with you.” 

As Rohrith fought to digest this momentous revelation, he was rolled about even as his mouth was plundered anew, until he pressed quite hotly over Dioren’s strung, sculpted frame. Legs snaked temptingly around his waist, as his lover opened to him, ready to know him raw, sharp, braising, if that was necessary to win him. Yet the body prone before him was peredhil, not elf, whose viciously swollen girth prodded adamantly into his abdomen, gone unsatisfied since the start of their bed-play. He gazed down into eyes brilliant as the silmaril, that begged to be ensorcelled by smoldering seduction, and knew his lover’s brutish ways reformed.

He saw his heart there, shining immaculate. 

The rest was scarlet, consuming sensation. The slick of salve over his brick-red member. The plunge into scalding, velvet heat. The throb and pulse of his manic thrusts, the giving flesh, the curses and cries, the effulgent surge of ecstasy between them, as their soul flames conflagrated into an ancient and primordial fire that would outlast eternity. When, after cresting for what might have been ages flowing past, they collapsed into a blissful, sated, and slightly drunken embrace, Rohrith shook such with the loss of that rapturous fire that Dioren had to swiftly drag up the coverlet and cocoon them tight within. 

Dioren was proving far too amused for his liking at his mush-minded confusion, though as he placated him with naughty laps, licks, and tongue-tickling kisses, he did not protest overmuch. To ply him even further before their next tumble, he fetched them flutes of miruvor, though from whose cellars he stole the rare commodity, Rohrith dared not inquire. He saved his few questions for more pressing matters, such as the sudden, miraculous turn of events in his fortunate favor. Nor did any starry notions of romance keep one of his strident nature from putting these well-earned inquiries to his newfound beloved, once his mind had cleared enough to espouse their composition. He simply did so in a manner suited to their activities, whilst suckling the lean, muscled slope of his neck. 

“Forgive me, melethen, for spoiling such a wondrous eve,” Rohrith murmured breathily against his slender collarbone. “But I must ask… what awesome reversal occurred in the last week to convince you of my worthiness?” 

“*Never* question your worthiness, dear one,” Dioren instructed, his face pained at yet another reminder of the grief he had caused his love. “Twas I who… whose wits were so muddled by my tragic fate, I did not see what’s been plain since the first day of our acquaintance.” He caught Rohrith beneath the chin and lifted his face so that their dewy eyes met sweet. “That you are my intended. My salvation. Mine to have, eternally. Mine to love.” 

He kissed him such that they were embroiled for quite a time, until Rohrith shook his head in protest of this diversion. 

“Ever have I been yours, Dioren,” Rohrith agreed. “This is well established between us. But, nin ind, what spurned the change within you? What made you recognize, and so suddenly… our belonging.” 

“Twas not so sudden as you believe,” Dioren replied, seeing he could no longer distract him from the truth of it. “I have treasured these last months as no other time in my long lives. The more fervent our desires became, the more I chastised myself for treating you so crudely. I hated that I was forced to do so for my own peace, when you would have none if I broke off our relations. Yet as early as… as before we fully experienced bodily loving, I sensed that I could never rightly break with you. That you *were* my peace. As the weeks passed, as all the beauteous shades of your character were revealed to me, I, in turn, came to understand that… that healing meant embracing my love for you. That I would not achieve oneness until I opened my heart.” 

“When did certitude come?” Rohrith asked. He knew he was quibbling over details, but a sudden desperation overcame him. He had to know the toll of it, had to map out every nuance of feeling within his beloved one. “When were you sure of your heart?” 

“Melethron,” Dioren soothed him. “Does it not matter that I am here? That we are coupled in love this night?” 

“Aye, Dioren, quite dearly,” Rohrith conceded, his black eyes wet. “So dearly as you can scarcely imagine.” 

Seeing the acuity of his distress, Dioren hastened to reassure him. 

“I knew…” he exhaled heavily, then soldiered on. “I felt the first flames of it… when you lay injured at my hand. I knew that I could not survive without you; more, that I did not wish to. I suppressed the feelings swimming within me, for I could not conscience plunging you into a love relation with little chance of future, when the resulting loss might drown you. When our ‘explorations’ began, I fought against the tides of affection that swelled around me whenever we lay together, but after only a few weeks, I could no longer deny myself, no longer ignore the waves of love that broke over me when we… released. Yet still I held the knowledge close, out of fear that I might not survive the melding of my souls. If there was a chance that you might be saved by my kept tongue, then I kept it gladly.” 

“But you have this night revealed yourself,” Rohrith softly challenged him, intent on his shroud face. “The threat of melding live as ever, yet your secret’s known. Seared into my skin, no less, by your most edifying caresses. Why?” 

Dioren barely stifled an impish grin, savoring the moment. He kissed him once, then twice in quick succession, revving up to his climactic revelation. 

“Can you not guess?” Dioren beamed, his glory lit by the autumnal aura of the moon. “My moment of crisis passed this very week, and I am better for it. I am whole, melethron.” 

The cry that wrung from the darkling elf could have shattered glass, so sheer was its elation. Dioren found himself toppled anew, as hands, mouth, teeth, and gluttonous tongue assaulted him. After some shrewd gropes of his own and no end of giggles, he flung his lover over, then pounced atop him, wanting to avail him of one other development before they grew ravenous anew. He had never seen Rohrith so crazed with contentment, so absolutely gaudy with delight. 

This, however, did not entirely mean that he enjoyed being held against his will. 

“Let me loose!” he trilled, wiggling like an elfling beneath him. “You cannot rightly think to temper me after such a revelation! I must have you, Dioren, now that you are my very own. Prize. Treasure. Beloved!” 

“Aye, and have me you shall, after you heed a small request,” he insisted. 

“Which is this?” Rohrith inquired, batting his eyelashes lasciviously.

“Have me not just now, but forever,” Dioren elaborated, suddenly hoarse with emotion. “Too much pain has passed between us, too much misunderstanding and too many threats of grief to forgo our eternity for a second longer. I would not loose you for reign of the entire kingdom of Arda, melethron. Rohrith… bind with me.” 

Rohrith quit his writhing, agape. 

No force in this Blessed Realm, nor sage order from the Valar above could have kept him from singing out his joy; indeed, most of the vale was instantly alerted to his incendiary ravings. He ravished his beloved until the first rosy rays of dawn and well into the golden morn, claiming with explicit care and feverish devotion the love of his eternal life. 

* * * 

Midsummer, Year 837, Fourth Age

The ancient, ageless elven city of Vinyamar sprawled out before them, its walkways, alleys, and canals swimming with opalescent glow, as revelers kitted with sparkle-lanterns and tipsy-stepped celebrants frolicked through the streets. The pinky orange flames of a cherrywood bonfire tongued up towards the violet heavens, as the last, rosy embers of sunset sunk below the far horizon. On this, the longest day of the year, even such an archaic city would not know a wink of rest, as evidenced by the ruddy aura of the view and the vivacious dancers kicking around the ritual pyre. 

The High King had summoned nobles and dignitaries from across Aman to pay homage to the summer solstice in this, the eldest of elven cities; only the stoics of Laurelin had dared refused him. Threatened somewhat by Gondolen’s growing reputation among the young as the premier site of activity for this peaceful, flourishing generation of elven culture, the High Court had organized a fortnight of conferences, markets, performances, and debates, with the intent of honoring the hallows of elven history. This potent theme had attracted two distinct contingents, the veterans and the revisionists, both of whom were given equal opportunity to stage whatever display, whether artistic, intellectual, or otherwise, might best persuade their audience. This resulted in a wealth of truly phenomenal talent coming to the fore of public awareness: oldtime philosophers whose works were rediscovered, recent innovations in craftsmanship were admired by larger numbers, gifted new composers on the musical, literary, and theatrical scene were presented to wealthier benefactors. Each day’s prepared schedule was burnt by nightfall, when old and young alike threw themselves into festivities such as the venerable city had never seen before. 

The most scintillating star of the High Court’s debate series and newly crowned champion of the oratory competition, one whose politics were reputed to bridge the gap between the veterans and the revisionists to move towards a cohesive vision of elven government in the imminent fifth age, observed the whirligig revels below from the lush climes of his bedchamber balcony, a pensive frown curdling his butter-skin brow. Unlike others of his relatively youthful age, the stunning grandson of the Lord of Telperion had spent the day not in attendance of any upstart theatrical performance, nor strolling the trade markets for fine-spun linens, nor trolling the galleries for that rare sculpture by an as yet unheralded artist. Instead, the young master had been shepherded through a series of secretive appointments with rulers, councilmen, and diplomats by the dozen, each courting him with ridiculously indulgent powers, capacities, titles, and offices aplenty. His dominance of the many assemblies on essential matters of morality and of justice, his patronage to only the most ingenious performers and artisans, the overwhelming evidence of his swiftly burgeoning leagues of followers, as well as his climactic speech to the High Court on the previous afternoon, had fed a frenzy such as none of the elders had witnessed since Ereinion’s coming to majority so many ages ago. 

In whispered corners his loyals had even bequeathed him the second name of Gil-Romen, the uprising star, though the strong, silent, and silken peredhil who was the ethereal spirit that ever haunted his side preferred another, more familiar appellation. 

Bereth. 

Twas rumored among their Telperion loyals that Gil-Romen was not one single elf, but a hallowed alliance between bonded mates. That Rohrith was just the brash, keen, and fascinating front for their revolutionary partnership, that when they acted or chose it was in rapt synchronicity, that whatever decision was taken on the couple’s future residence, title, or office, the bolder one would not acquiesce without the quiet other’s compliance. Those that understood this subtlety had the greater influence, for they knew that the more cunning strategy would be to court not just the speaker himself, but his ever-present, composed and sage advisor, also his faithful husband. While Dioren had no love for the spotlight, nor for the theatrical flourish of oration, his sparse and seldom statements were weighted by the colossal respect Rohrith’s loyals deigned him. Although they were aware of only the barest scraps of fact in what had transpired between them, the trials of his early life experience had blessed him with the cachet of renown resilience, while Rohrith’s adoration gifted him with the laurel of love’s triumph over tremendous adversity. Though in Telperion their life was relatively sedate, here in Vinyamar they had taken on the pungent stench of celebrity. As such, they were nightly inundated with invitations, any banquet that boasted their attendance an instant success. Their opinions had taken on a grotesque level of import, such that they felt compelled to mock themselves in close company. 

That their binding was not a pluck strained by this strangeness was a fierce testament to their love. As he wove a securing arm around his husband’s slender waist and lay a doting head on his shoulder, Dioren could not help but conjure up the florid image of the previous day’s transcendent speech to the High Court. Rohrith’s face had shone with the light of Elbereth herself, as he preached temperance among the young, patience among the elders, and unity among all elven people. He had told proudly of his mixed family, of his so oft-persecuted lineage, and had adamantly insisted that their struggles should not be in vain. He had sung gloriously of his fathers’ selfless acts of valor during the long ages of war, of how naïve those Valinor-born were to so callously forget such recent history. He had pleaded with older elves to cast away grudges, prejudices, and forgive wrongdoings in the name of their hard-won peace. Resounding through every mellifluous statement was the siren song of their shared heart; the warmth, succor, and fraternity born in their bed inseminating the fertile-minded masses through his pregnant, hopeful words.

Dioren was still so flush with feeling, he felt as blazing as the bonfire below. Their furious coupling the night before had only made their early morning, endless day of meetings, and supper invite to the High King’s table all the more excruciating to wait through, despite the need for acute attentiveness to the offers of each covetous solicitor. Indeed, he had, at times, felt the bilious surge of jealousy within, when some diplomat’s bedazzled eyes insinuated what his treacle words only underscored: a barely veiled attraction to Telperion’s brightest starchild. Fortunately for inter-realm relations, he had managed to keep his head level, though he yet hoped to lure some of those pompous cads to the gambling tables and exact a more rewarding form of purse-lightening revenge. 

His tickled smirk straightened, however, with a glance at Rohrith’s shroud face. His husband was painfully serious for their one night of privacy; having refused all flattering invitations and not particularly interested in any of the drunken goings-on about, they had taken refuge in their luxurious rooms for an evening of decadent reconnection. Which was, at the moment, proving all too sober for Dioren’s liking. He pulled Rohrith away from the rail, into his supple embrace. When eyes swirling with over-thought confusion met his own twinkling blues, he knew desperate measures were called for. He smoothed a flirty satin kiss over rose lips of wolfish snarl, which gladly parted to allow sweet, soothing laps of tongue. Their caresses bloomed into long, nurturing draughts from the other’s sultry mouth, as the resplendent heat of Rohrith’s soul flame fed ravenously from his own. His tender one groaned throatily when his lips moved off to skirt up his cheeks and over his brow, silently grateful for his husband’s meticulous care of his weighted heart. He bowed to allow further nips, sips, and culls to flatter his forehead, cinched Dioren tight against him. 

“What sense have you made of the myriad offers laid before us, melethen?” Rohrith inquired, eager for them to choose and thus be lifted of the burden. 

“You are more generous in your esteem, my brave one,” Dioren remarked, with some amusement. “I fear there is little sense to be made of such thoughtless overtures. Few among them spoke with any trace of true reflection. Glory-mongers, all.” 

“You are sharp with them,” Rohrith chuckled, though did not counter his estimation. “You did not like, perhaps, how they flattered me. How some flirted so overtly before my mate.”

Dioren laughed aloud, then kissed him soundly, more tempted than ever to drag him to bed and be done with the silly matter of his ignoble suitors. 

“Do you think me so uncertain?” he queried, underlining his confidence in their bond with a luscious kiss. “There is no other in Arda or Aman who has proved their love so embattled, so deserved, or of such sterling regard. If I do not have your heart, bereth-nin, then nothing is sure, proven, or real, then all is fluid and formless.”

“I am yours alone, Dioren,” Rohrith agreed. “If truth exists, then this is surely one.” He returned him a kiss of simmering promise, but swerved their conversation back to the political. “But tell me, what think you of… of Gondolen’s proposition?” 

“Are you vying for a Lordship, then?” Dioren teased, then gave his honest answer. “Tis almost too extravagant to be believed. A seat on the High Council and the title of Guildmaster to the House of the Eagle, then with the dawn of the new age that comes too swiftly, rule of the valley entire? Should not Echoriath refuse the privilege, before we even dare consider it?” 

“He may have already,” Rohrith considered. “He would not so thoughtlessly quit Tathren, not with their family nearly begun.”

“Would you be well so far from our kindred?” Dioren questioned, surprised by this line of reasoning. He had not even bothered to ruminate on Gondolen’s offer, not when Elrond wanted to name Rohrith his successor and retire to his experiments in the healing arts. 

“Nay, I would suffer it,” Rohrith admitted, though seemed somewhat depressed by his ambition’s lack. “Neither could I allow you to abandon your Naneth’s company, with her so recently returned to you. The pair of you are too sweet for words, when bent in complicit confidence.” 

“Perhaps our Lord’s inheritance might be postponed awhile,” Dioren suggested, which did brighten him some. “Perhaps… we might undertake a brief period of adventuring, to sate the more strident streak in your bold spirit, before settling in to the easy rule of our beloved vale. What say you?” 

Rohrith’s resultant, radiant smile was patently ensorcelling. 

“I say you are a treasure, melethron,” Rohrith beamed. “A friend, mate, and lover of purest element, and the dearest one to me.” Yet even such lofty troths could not long hold off his eagerness. “What challenge might we undertake? To what foreign land might we venture? Verily, you have thrilled me with your remark! Surely you have some particular course in mind?” 

Dioren laughed most heartily at his relentless excitement, hugging tightly to him to feel his sinuous body aquiver. 

“I fear I had none but your immediate and thorough ravishment, moren vain,” he purred, as desire flamed between them. “But I am sure one of your bristling mind will light upon some dream-heralded adventure for us, before long. For now, let us not loose this cherished night to planning and debate.” He slunk out of their hot embrace and glided back towards their bedchamber. “I want my husband.” 

“He is forever yours, my golden one,” Rohrith smiled, then followed his hard-won mate to bedding. 

Within their bonded bliss was the adventure of an eternal lifetime. 

 

The End


End file.
